The Temporary Blog

Exploring Panarchy & Undistracted Reading

2012-02-14T05:13:00.000-08:00

I learned a new word today: "Panarchy" from following this link to Bertrand Russell.
Here's the Wikipedia definition.
And there is a whole website to explore, with things like Fred Reed on the topic of Disengagement. (So, maybe I'm not so much reclusive but rather disengaged.)

Later on, I found Is Google Making Us Stupid? by Nicholas Carr for The Atlantic. I took comfort from this statement:

The kind of deep reading that a sequence of printed pages promotes is valuable not just for the knowledge we acquire from the author’s words but for the intellectual vibrations those words set off within our own minds. In the quiet spaces opened up by the sustained, undistracted reading of a book, or by any other act of contemplation, for that matter, we make our own associations, draw our own inferences and analogies, foster our own ideas.

Thanks to McLuhan Galaxy for the photo and the direction.

Killed by Stuff I Can't Pronounce

2012-02-13T07:22:00.000-08:00

After I woke up about the potentially poisonous Triclosan that I have been applying nilly-willy to all of my eating utensils, I switched to something "green" without it, that a friend of mine picked up at the local market for me. Right off there was something about the smell of it that turned my stomach. I could detect a lingering odor on my drinking water glass. The fact that it was manufactured by the same friendly folk who bring us Clorox should have been an indicator.

So now I am being attacked by methylisothiazolinone! Pretty bad stuff. I'm back to the dish-washing moratorium, to which I have been forced to add one on hair-washing, as I have also found it in my shampoo. (I gave up on wearing make-up 15 years ago so there is thankfully no danger to me there.) Check out the EPA Fact Sheet link (http://www.epa.gov/oppsrrd1/REDs/factsheets/3092fact.pdf) which says, in part: Human Health Assessment/Toxicity - In studies using laboratory animals, methylisothiazolinone has been shown to be of moderate acute toxicity by oral and inhalation routes. It is HIGHLY ACUTELY TOXIC WHEN APPLIED DERMALLY or to the eye and is considered to be corrosive [caps mine].

Here methylisothiazolinine has made the Hot Product List! It seems like the manufacturing source for this poison is, for the most part, China. They are getting back at us for all the e-waste we sent them no doubt.

Saved By a Purple Squirrel

2012-02-09T11:06:00.000-08:00

Believe it or not, a purple squirrel may have saved my life today. It brought to my attention two bad things, at any rate, one that I have no control over, and another that I do. In the past, squirrels of all types (red ones, gray ones, and even the ones sporting wings) have been the bane of my existence. So when I caught the "Purple Cow" headline from TYWKIWDBI over on the sidebar this morning, and discovered their purple squirrel story, my attention was captured. I went on to learn more in an article titled No Explanation for Pennsylvania's Purple Squirrel. Something called "fracking" was suggested as a possible cause of the anomaly.

My search for information about fracking brought me to Food & Water Watch, where I learned that the practice endangers our drinking water supply, the purple squirrel effect being one of the possible indicators of damage caused by the practice in the state of Pennsylvania. To the left of the fracking article under the sidebar heading "Quick Review" I encountered another hitherto unknown topic: TRICLOSAN (ENDOCRINE DISRUPTOR). Click! An article titled What's Lurking in Your Soap? The Trouble with Triclosan informed me of a second danger hiding in plain view in my very own kitchen.

The article was written in 2009. I have been using this poisonous crap to wash my dishes for years! But now I am informed. There will be a moratorium on dishwashing until I can get to the market and find a safe alternative. I'll add this to my ever-growing list of harmful products to avoid--fluoride toothpaste, high-fructose corn syrup and aspartame laced foods, vegetables grown in Mexico, and microwave ovens--it's a dangerous world!

Absent Afternoon - Play List No. 9

2012-02-03T15:54:00.000-08:00

Calexico - Absent Afternoon [now absent, sorry]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT0NaG5IKao&feature=related

Calexico - Ghostwriter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5nLTtdbQHc&feature=related

Calexico - Dance of Death
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f1ofYvNfU0&feature=related

John Fahey - Red Pony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSh-YsyjpXk&feature=related

John Fahey - In Christ There is No East or West
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ_ay0p2_vo&feature=related

Calexico - All the Pretty Little Horses
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyX4xeEU_30&feature=related

Allison Krause - Down in the River to Pray
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgVL-rBq9Fw&feature=related

Steve Earle, Gillian Welch, David Rawlings - Sin City
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9DcdpU89Os&feature=related

Mean Mary James - Big Red Barn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX-SeEf2P-o&feature=relmfu

Soggy Bottom Boys - Man of Constant Sorrow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDA708XlFIo&feature=related

June Tabor - Where Are You Tonight
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyQX8MMveXk&feature=related

Martin Simpson - Raglan Road
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9qh3QSAt3g&feature=related

Steve Young - Seven Bridges Road
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYJOaoOQlJQ&feature=related

Townes van Zandt - High, Low and In Between
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3jzFoFeVUg&feature=related

J.J. Cale - Lonesome Train
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3Q6scQhJS4&feature=related

Van Morrison - Beside You
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NOr9YX9oOk

Van Morrison - Streets of Arklow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR3orob9xtE&feature=related

How Wild Things Are!

2012-01-27T11:14:00.000-08:00

This has been an interesting day for wildlife, particularly birds. I saw a flock of robins out in the berry bushes this morning. And I had three gorgeous male cardinals out on my feeder at the same time, their red coloration surreal against the gray and dingy white of the landscape.

Make that 3 males, one female, and a gray squirrel!

The weather has made for an uneventful day, retail-wise. I'm amusing myself after shoveling wet snow in the rain by watching videos on my computer. (How did I live without this so long, suffering with my old dial-up connection?) The best one was found via Letterology: an interview with Stephen Colbert (massive television jerk--"doesn't pass the smell test") and the creatively brilliant Maurice Sendak.

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

I don't watch television so I found the laugh track to be particularly annoying, but I can see how Colbert might have become dependent on it. Here's part two:

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Hilarious stuff so I have to give Colbert *some* credit here. (I had to google his name to figure out who he was, however, and I don't feel like I've been missing out.) And might I also add that Maurice Sendak is right on about Mr. Gingrich, in my humble opinion.

Old Socks You Say, Mr. Cheever?

2012-01-24T14:29:00.000-08:00

Check out this calendar of librarians called Men of the Stacks, particularly Mr. January! I think John Cheever was dead wrong about the profession and I'm rather sorry I'm retired from the field myself.

The book of the month is Djuna Barnes' Nightwood, a highly regarded classic of lesbian literature.

Djuna Barnes (1892-1982), pictured above, was one of the key female modernist writers and an important figure in the bohemian Paris of the 1920s and '30s. Barnes spent the final forty years of her life as a recluse in New York City. She was largely overlooked during her lifetime and had difficulty finding publishers for even her best work. Acclaim for her writing has grown since her death.

[Nightwood possesses] the great achievement of a style, the beauty of phrasing, the brilliance of wit and characterisation, and a duality of horror and doom very nearly related to that of Elizabethan tragedy. (T.S. Eliot)

It isn't a lah-de-dah prose poem, because it's about what some very real people feel, think, and do. It's . . . one of the three great prose books ever written by a woman. (Dylan Thomas)

I read Nightwood back in the 1930s and was very taken with it. I consider it one of the great books of the twentieth century. (William Burroughs)

Angels in America?

2012-01-24T09:46:00.000-08:00

I've been giving some thought to a six-part HBO movie that a friend lent to me at Christmas time. At the outset I was quite taken with it. It features one of my favorite actors, Meryl Streep. And despite all the negative things I am about to say, I still think Streep's bit with the homeless woman is humorous. Due to the miracle of Youtube (forward to 3:50) I can show those of you who have not see the film. I love the way she delivers this line: "So, I'm sorry that you're psychotic, but just make an effort!" (1.)

OK, this is bound to offend readers on any number of points but I'll just jump right in as I have a lot of material to cover. The temperature outside has risen over 50 degrees from -10 F. the other day so maybe my brain has thawed. (It's happening to others, as well. My friend Mrs. Neutron posted a brilliant piece this morning.)

It started last night, actually. Just as I was falling asleep I had flashes of insight regarding the world situation as reflected in Angels in America. I recalled the plethora of Coca-cola advertising, blatant enough to choke a shark! Dramatic framing with everything else in the scene reduced to subtle shades of gray in order to emphasize the red can--the crimson vending machine covered in ice like a giant megalith of e-waste rising out of the South Pole.

But my real concern is this: Why the big production to showcase gay men with aids in relation to politics, and what, specifically, is the purpose of the Mormon theme? I remember reading somewhere the theory that world events are introduced to the masses via Hollywood before they actually occur, gaining an acceptance on a subliminal level so the same events will not be questioned when they occur in reality.

First thing this morning, I Googled "who owns HBO" to get the skinny from Wikipedia. I should state for the benefit of those who do not know me that I live under media black-out conditions. I'm a recluse who ignores television, radio, and newspapers. I find it more satisfactory to discover things on my own, do the research, and then draw my own conclusions. Let's sit back and see if indeed we will have a Mormon as president as this 2004 made for television series seems to predict. (2.)

I guess my actual point today is this: When are Americans going to get a grip and face up to what is being done to us? We are allowing ourselves to be distracted by political non-issues like sexual preference when our rights to clean air and water, healthy food, medical autonomy and intellectual freedom are severely threatened. (3.)

--------------

(1.) Geeze, what's up with Youtube lately? This morning I noticed a little red telephone just to the right of the YT logo at the top of the screen. Hover over it and it says "Ask President Obama" of all things. Is he really going to drop everything to address my question and will the answer be truthful?

(2.) The Time article I linked to claims that the Public Relations Manager of the Mormon church can be contacted by cell phone "day or night." Is there some relation to (1.) ?

(3.) I keep getting an obnoxious advertisement in the YT sidebar which shouts in all caps: "GAY BILLIONAIRES FORCED SAME-SEX MARRIAGE ON NEW HAMPSHIRE" [photo of 2 opposing hands in black suit sleeves performing some sort of secret hand-shake involving cash] "WE CAN FIX THAT NOW" [click to enter your credit card number, presumably] "PAID FOR BY NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MARRIAGE"

Heartworn Highways - Play List No. 8

2012-01-23T08:53:00.000-08:00

Heartworn Highways is one of my favorites to watch when I am sick of every other DVD in my collection. I can "next" past the few performances I do not like from the comfort of my bed: the obnoxious Gamble Rogers, the interminable noise of the Charlie Daniels Band (sorry, Texans), the creepy bit with Glenn Stagner, and enjoy some of the music I previously owned only on cassette tape (recorded off late-night radio back in my Beverly days).

I love the early songs of Guy Clark: Desperados Waiting for a Train, and L.A. Freeway.

Steve Earle performs Mercenary Song, (here's another version recorded live in Austin in 1978), and Darlin' Commit Me. Steve Young's Alabama Highway is great, as is Rodney's Crowell's Bluebird Wine.

A few more clips from the film: here (David Allan Coe's I Still Sing the Old Songs); here (Guy Clark's Ballad of Laverne and John Hyatt's One for the One); and here (recorded Christmas Eve 1975). Beautiful stuff! (A review of the film here.)

I'll leave off with Flyin' Shoes by Townes Van Zandt.

Sniffing Old Socks - John Cheever on Librarians

2012-01-20T11:09:00.000-08:00

I'm reading The Letters of John Cheever which I purchased at my local library for $1. Four pages from the end I discovered this funny opinion regarding librarians:

On librarians I do speak with prejudice. The profession in general has always seemed to me like the legitimization and financing of an impulse to collect old socks. It has always seemed to enjoy people who would enjoy handling old socks, smelling old socks and legitimizing catagories [sic] of old socks. But then you know I am terribly prejudiced.

You can watch the 1968 film version of Cheever's story "The Swimmer" starring Burt Lancaster in seven parts on Youtube: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7. Burt Lancaster is barefoot during the entire movie.

Day for Deer

2012-01-19T14:02:00.000-08:00

Just as it was getting dark (too dark for a photo) I noticed that there were deer crossing the meadow towards the yard so I stood at the window watching and counting. There were nine altogether and they spent some time eating the berry bushes near the edge of the lawn. The photo above, taken last April, shows the area.

Something Stupid

2012-01-19T09:29:00.000-08:00

Remember I mentioned how my tub drain was frozen? After waiting two days for the damn thing to thaw, I decided to take steps to fix the situation. First I bailed all the standing water out the window into the yard. Then I ran hot water into the sink which backed up into the tub. I tried going at the tub drain with a plunger and thought I could detect tiny bubbles. Hoping that this was an indication that the drain was ready to start running again, I decided to try freeing it by snaking down a wire hanger. (BIG mistake.)

Hot water was still running in the sink. The water level suddenly stopped rising in the tub and began dropping. I experienced a nanosecond of smug victory which was interrupted by the realization that my feet felt wet! I looked down and saw a sheet of water running across the floor and down the heat vent opening into the living room below. So I reached down with my hand and grabbed the punctured drain pipe under the tub (luckily it's one of those old-fashioned ones on feet so all of the plumbing is exposed) and was able to slow down the flow considerably. Meanwhile, I could hear the water dripping on stuff downstairs, the water in the sink was still running, and the window was still wide open to the 20 degree weather.

It occurs to me just now as I am relating this sad tale that all I had to do is reach over with my free hand and insert the stopper resting in the soap dish into the drain but I was at the time mightily distracted by the fact that a) I couldn't reach the sink to shut off the running water without letting go of the hole in the tub drain and b) directly under the floor beneath me was an oak bookcase containing my oldest and most valuable collection of geology books.

So I relinquished my hold on the drain, turned off the sink faucet, and threw every towel I own along with a laundry basket of clothing onto the floor in an attempt to staunch the flood before rushing downstairs to try to save my library.

Downstairs the water was streaming down through the ceiling all over two bookcases and forming a huge puddle on the wood floor. I grabbed big green trash bags from the kitchen and covered the bookcase with the old books. The volumes were protected somewhat by glass doors but water was getting in and starting to accumulate at the edges of the shelves so I began emptying the contents shelf by shelf, dodging the streams of water still coming down from the ceiling. I then used five or six rolls of paper towels along with two chair covers and assorted curtains to absorb the puddles on the floor before remembering that I still had a wide-open window in the bathroom.

I was left with a puddle of amazing proportions on the cellar floor and a hundred pounds of dirty laundry. It was a miracle that no electrical problems resulted, only the covers of a few volumes were damaged along with a roll of old topographic maps, and that no cats escaped. (The last time I left the bathroom window open just briefly without a screen I was later sitting on the toilet and noticed a cat perched out on the far peak of the kitchen roof beside the lightning rod!) But that's a story for another time. I've confessed to enough stupidity for today.

Stop Internet Censorship

2012-01-18T12:41:00.000-08:00

A Little Bitch About the Weather

2012-01-15T08:08:00.000-08:00

It's cold here. How cold? This morning it was -5 degrees F. at 7 a.m. It has now "warmed up" to 1.

Because of possible power outages due to wind and freezing rain I left my bathtub filled with water yesterday as an emergency reservoir to flush the toilet since my water supply depends on an electric pump. The drain pipe froze up overnight so this morning I could not take the nice hot bath I was looking forward to. I tried bailing the tub water into the sink but it just backed up into the tub again along with all manner of drain sludge. I opened the window and threw water out into the backyard and ran hot water into the tub in an attempt to free things up but the problem persists.

Oh well, it's too cold to sweat anyway, but I was so looking forward to having warm feet!

Dogville: A Quiet Little Town

2012-01-15T06:18:00.000-08:00

I watched Dogville last night for the first time. I knew nothing about the film except that it was directed by Lars von Trier, and that it starred Nicole Kidman. (She is a great actor--I absolutely loved her in Fur, the fictitious biography of Diane Arbus, and also in The Hours.) I had the feeling beforehand that it was going to be a strange ride.

I was tired and did not really get it until I was partway into the film and then suddenly I was completely into it, this amazing negative dystopia so reminicent of Thornton Wilder's Our Town (and Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio).

The ending will not be written about here for the benefit of those who have not yet seen the film. Don't read the Wikipedia entry! It is such a total spoiler that I won't even link to it here. You'll want to watch this one to the very end to savor the closing montage of photographs and David Bowie singing Young Americans.

According to von Trier, the point of the film is that "evil can arise anywhere, as long as the situation is right."

Aimee & Frazey - Play List No. 7

2012-01-10T17:56:00.000-08:00

I've been building this play list since before Christmas. Just discovered the amazing Frazey Ford this afternoon! (Note to self: Figure out how to create a little player like on here.)

Leila Avila - Pure Imagination
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpX9VjyA5Qw&feature=related

George Shearing - Showfall [from C.S.]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ANFFHTEcFJ8

Nancy Wilson - Christmas Waltz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYrqaIFe5Ek

Eddie Cochran - C'mon Everybody
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=X7KQMOAUsGc#!

Mountain - Theme For An Imaginary Western
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMx6OvwboFo&feature=related

Howlin' Wolf - Goin' Down Slow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0MIQHymToA&feature=related

Chris Connor - Feeling Good
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgeptZBFV6Y&feature=player_embedded

Aimee Mann - That's How I Knew This Story Would Break My Heart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe9sUTi9vOY&feature=artist

Aimee Mann - Little Tornado
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My9nu9eOEkc&feature=artist

Aimee Mann - Save Me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StFr-7QBRyA&feature=related

Aimee Mann - Phoenix
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vn39ZLU9B4&feature=related

Aimee Mann- Going Through the Motions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqHW1PZ5RNo&feature=related

Aimee Mann - Wise Up (Live)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3D7xplBYNY&hd=1

Aimee Mann - High on Sunday 51
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3ZBzO7uw_U&feature=related

Aimee Mann - Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACPG9_01srI

Aimee Mann - Humpty Dumpty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRD_J1N2X20

Michael Lee Clemmer - You Got Me Licked (from Bullet Holes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIuYCisuFXY&feature=related

Santana - Europa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYsj0rmCHsQ&feature=related

Bob Dylan - One More Cup of Coffee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id0ly_rEubQ&feature=related

Bob Dylan - Friday
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FISHEO3gsM&feature=socblog_th

Eric Burdon - One More Cup of Coffee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NO0f7IXnPA&feature=related

Frazey Ford - One More Cup of Coffee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=NbKlEXqvRak

Frazey Ford - Bird of Paradise
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uC2WIsH7x1U&feature=related

Frazey Ford - If You Gonna Go
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwuxU_If2OU&feature=related

Frazey Ford - In My Time of Dying
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6dj8PfdHoU&feature=related

Frazey Ford - September Field
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gibmveyHi9A&feature=related

The Be Good Tanyas - Ootischenia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UPbRBnNRno&feature=related

The Be Good Tanyas - Rain and Snow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9eUWI_d0QE&feature=related

The Be Good Tanyas - Scattered Leaves
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9KAf-7-knE&feature=related

The Civil Wars - Forget Me Not
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLo97Rqk7M0&feature=relmfu

Breaux Freres - Ma Blonde Est Partie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=AGZ5aBSJQWo#!

Jolie Holland - Damn Shame
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOGv8U3bNc0&feature=related

Jolie Holland - Rex's Blues
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hijp_ZOo5SE&feature=related

Townes Van Zandt - Rex's Blues
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QojVOt5KXUM&feature=related

My Weekend

2012-01-10T07:02:00.000-08:00

Anita's Beads is closed today so it's my weekend! Time to play with designs for fabric while listening to tunes on Youtube like this one by Bob Dylan.

Circular Optical Illusion

2012-01-08T10:21:00.000-08:00

I really like this little video from New Scientist TV demonstrating a circular optical illusion! My column width is a bit too narrow for the viewer so play it in "Full Screen." Make sure you are sitting close to your screen for the best effect. In actuality, the physical trajectory of each line segment is purely horizontal and none of the circles are rotating. (Thanks to TYWKIWDBI for showing the way.)

Todays Tunes

2012-01-04T13:28:00.000-08:00

Artsy animation along with this song by Gotye. And here's another song by Kimbra. Nice voice.

Finally Getting With Facebook

2012-01-04T07:44:00.000-08:00

I've been obsessed with fabric lately, and everything I see is transformed by my feverish brain into a spark for a new design. Just browsing through my Tumblr archives is enough to put me on Photoshop overload and it's all so good, so fun. This morning I came across the clever fabric design below (available via Spinning Hat if you still owe someone a gift) and realized that Facebook is indeed everywhere. Then I decided that I should be ubiquitous, too. So AnitaNH Designs is now on Facebook.

Found via a Poet

2012-01-02T06:44:00.000-08:00

I'm totally absorbed by my fabric project so I clipped the bulk of today's post from here. I've always loved George Carlin. He had a way with words.

"I’m a modern man, a man for the millennium. Digital and smoke free. A diversified multi-cultural, post-modern deconstruction that is anatomically and ecologically incorrect. I’ve been up linked and downloaded, I’ve been inputted and outsourced, I know the upside of downsizing, I know the downside of upgrading. I’m a high-tech low-life. A cutting edge, state-of-the-art bi-coastal multi-tasker and I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond!

I’m new wave, but I’m old school and my inner child is outward bound. I’m a hot-wired, heat seeking, warm-hearted cool customer, voice activated and bio-degradable. I interface with my database, my database is in cyberspace, so I’m interactive, I’m hyperactive and from time to time I’m radioactive.

Behind the eight ball, ahead of the curve, ridin the wave, dodgin the bullet and pushin the envelope. I’m on-point, on-task, on-message and off drugs. I’ve got no need for coke and speed. I've got no urge to binge and purge. I’m in-the-moment, on-the-edge, over-the-top and under-the-radar. A high-concept, low-profile, medium-range ballistic missionary. A street-wise smart bomb. A top-gun bottom feeder. I wear power ties, I tell power lies, I take power naps and run victory laps. I’m a totally ongoing big-foot, slam-dunk, rainmaker with a pro-active outreach. A raging workaholic. A working rageaholic. Out of rehab and in denial!

I’ve got a personal trainer, a personal shopper, a personal assistant and a personal agenda. You can’t shut me up. You can’t dumb me down because I’m tireless and I’m wireless, I’m an alpha male on beta-blockers.

I’m a non-believer and an over-achiever, laid-back but fashion-forward. Up-front, down-home, low-rent, high-maintenance. Super-sized, long-lasting, high-definition, fast-acting, oven-ready and built-to-last! I’m a hands-on, foot-loose, knee-jerk head case pretty maturely post-traumatic and I’ve got a love-child that sends me hate mail.

But, I’m feeling, I’m caring, I’m healing, I’m sharing-- a supportive, bonding, nurturing primary care-giver. My output is down, but my income is up. I took a short position on the long bond and my revenue stream has its own cash-flow. I read junk mail, I eat junk food, I buy junk bonds and I watch trash sports! I’m gender specific, capital intensive, user-friendly and lactose intolerant.

I like rough sex. I like tough love. I use the “F” word in my emails and the software on my hard-drive is hardcore--no soft porn.

I bought a microwave at a mini-mall; I bought a mini-van at a mega-store. I eat fast-food in the slow lane. I’m toll-free, bite-sized, ready-to-wear and I come in all sizes. A fully-equipped, factory-authorized, hospital-tested, clinically-proven, scientifically- formulated medical miracle. I’ve been pre-wash, pre-cooked, pre-heated, pre-screened, pre-approved, pre-packaged, post-dated, freeze-dried, double-wrapped, vacuum-packed and, I have an unlimited broadband capacity.

I’m a rude dude, but I’m the real deal. Lean and mean! Cocked, locked and ready-to-rock. Rough, tough and hard to bluff. I take it slow, I go with the flow, I ride with the tide. I’ve got glide in my stride. Drivin and movin, sailin and spinin, jiving and groovin, wailin and winnin. I don’t snooze, so I don’t lose. I keep the pedal to the metal and the rubber on the road. I party hearty and lunch time is crunch time. I’m hangin in, there ain’t no doubt and I’m hangin tough, over and out!"

Happy First Day to You

2012-01-01T16:37:00.000-08:00

My first day of the year has been productive. I've just created my first fabric collection at Spoonflower. I posted a little tutorial over at AnitaNH: Collage & Life documenting the creation process. At times I struggled but I mostly went with the flow. After I stepped away from the computer and then returned to put the results on my Tumblr, I realized that what I had looked at as mistakes were actually kind of great. Wow, don't you just love it when that happens?

Found this nice Aimee Mann song as well.

Distant Early Warning

2011-12-27T06:46:00.001-08:00

Back in the late 60's, Marshall McLuhan created a deck of cards titled "Distant Early Warning." I just discovered them, so it may be too late. Here are a few of my favorites. (You can see the whole set on this Flickr site.)

The DEW Line became a perfect metaphor for McLuhan on the role of art and the artist at a time of rapid social and technological change. He wrote in Understanding Media (1964): "I think of art, at its most significant, as a DEW line, a Distant Early Warning system that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it." For more background information on the Distant Early Warning Deck visit this site.

I like to use decks like these to gain insight or direction for the day or in making a decision by drawing a card at random, meditation cards if you will. I have been thinking about creating my own deck as a collage exercise. Maybe that will be my new year's resolution.

Hangman - Film List No. 1

2011-12-16T15:09:00.000-08:00

Paul Julian - Hangman (1964)
How humankind loves to feed others into the death machine, from a disturbing poem by Maurice Ogden, read by Herschel Bernardi. Shadows and shifting geometric planes lend a Chirico-like quality to Julian's animation. Great musical score by Serge Hovey. See more Paul Julian at One1more2time3. Here's his marvelous children's book Piccoli.

Philip Stapp - Symmetry (1966)
Stapp was one of the greatest animators working in the 1950-1975 era, using stylized, often pointillist abstract imagery, in a floating world sometimes surrealist, at other times reminiscent of Japanese "ukiyo-e" illustration. His spectacular 'Symmetry' is his greatest film, a fantasy of dancing images breaking apart, spinning, and converging. More information on Stapp.

Philip Stapp - Picture In Your Mind (1948)
Replete with its lonely, Tanguy-inspired landscapes peopled with static figures casting long shadows across charcoal-colored plains, ‘Picture’ is a unique document resulting from the sometimes dreamy, sometimes nightmarish vision of the artist in a war-torn land, with the spectre of death hovering ever-so-slightly ahead.

Jan Lenica - Rhinoceros (1965)
An animated version of Ionesco’s tale, a play on the theme of conformity. The dramatic structure is tied to the use of objects as transformative. People are not effected by people but rather by the objects the people create.

Homer Groening - Basic Brown, Basic Blue (1969)
Ever wonder how Matt Groening of 'The Simpsons' got his quirky sense of humor? The film is perhaps best viewed as a graphic artifact that will interest media historians seeking additional insight into the elements that influenced the cartoonist.

Monika Umba - Bluebird (2009)
Animation based on Charles Bukowski's Poem.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact

Johnathan Hodgson - The Man with the Beautiful Eyes (2000)
I love the way Jonathan Hodgson animated this Charles Bukowski poem. His illustration style is wonderful.

Jack Feldstein - Manahatta (2011)
A neon animation of Walt Whitman's poem.

Jack Feldstein - The Psychology of Scriptwriting (2009)
More neon animation by stream of consciousness filmmaker Jack Feldstein.

Andrea Dorfman, Tanya Davis - How To Be Alone (2011)
If you are happy in your head then solitude is blessed. Words to live by.

Prelinger Archive Mashup

2011-12-15T12:43:00.000-08:00

What happens when you make close to 2,000 ephemeral public domain films freely available on the Web? People make art and more films are born! --The Internet Archive has been one of my favorite online resources for texts. But I only discovered its Prelinger Archive Mashups this afternoon. Here are some noteworthy finds: Nuclear Hygiene (2007). Through A Slightly Darker Looking Glass (2004). Wow, found that under "collage." I may have to elaborate later on my collage blog. Infinity (2004: Knightengale). Ditto.

Here's the Prelinger Archives main page, and here's a list of Subject Keywords. I found this under "surrealism": The Powers of Congress (1947: Coronet Instructional Films). I love that dotted wallpaper.

Here's another under "surrealism": Live and Let Live (1947: Aetna Casulty & Surety Company). I kept expecting to see Gumby. Look out, Pokey, here comes the train!

This next selection from "surrealism," and an interesting lead-in to my final topic, shows an anonymous mother of the year in Knife-Thrower and Children (c.1950: Universal-International Newsreel).

Open Library search on Eugenics yields some interesting results like Havelock Ellis' The Task of Social Hygiene (1912), and Essays in War-Time: Further Studies in the Task of Social Hygiene (1917). In addition, I was excited to find G.K. Chesterton's Eugenics and Other Evils (1922). There are a total 0f 96 Open Library eBooks by G.K. Chesterton and 55 by Havelock Ellis so this should keep me occupied for a while!

I'll leave off with one more mashup: Dinner With Mr. Teats (2005: Chris Lyons).

OK, I lied. This is amazing. Here is Up to the Ether (2006: Flotel & Barret Hodgson).

Just Chicks - Play List No. 6

2011-12-15T08:03:00.000-08:00

Janis Joplin - Careless Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYN9GKbaZ7g&feature=related

Odetta - Careless Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOGXiYruaug&feature=related

Besse Smith - Careless Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iympOhiU1o&feature=related

Madeleine Peyroux - Careless Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdK21k4lArQ&feature=related

Madeleine Peyroux - Dance Me to the End of Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqpOFQvMM1A&feature=related

Madeleine Peyroux - Between the Bars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0LHjKf5hB4&feature=related

Agnes Obel - Between the Bars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoFCpOcNQyg&feature=related

Agnes Obel - Riverside
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWAXDQPULb0&feature=endscreen&NR=1

Agnes Obel - Brother Sparrow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWWjl-6Bnp4&feature=related

Agnes Obel - Just So
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NmjJeNFUVU&feature=relmfu

Agnes Obel - Katie Cruel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM7oQVa3cT8&feature=related

Distorted Christmas Interior Geometries

2011-12-13T15:21:00.000-08:00

I found Some Disordered Christmas Interior Geometries (on YouTube) featuring morphing faces to the tune of Scott Matthew's "Market Me to Children." The discovery resulted from some research I was doing on the photographs of Francesca Woodman in general and her altered book, Some Disordered Interior Geometries, in particular. (For more on Francesca Woodman, see my post on AnitaNH: Collage & Life.)

Here's another version without the crying faces which I like better. To be honest, I tried watching the first version a second time but could not stand to watch it again all the way through. Why does this make me think of the first song in the film "Notting Hill" ?

I'm trying to think of a way to save this post. OK, here's Scott Matthews covering the Eliot Smith song Behind the Bars. Even more depressing than Smith's original. Here's a second cover by Madeleine Peyroux.

Here's Madeleine again, this time covering Leonard Cohen's Dance Me To the End of Love. Nice one! I think I'll quit while I'm ahead.

Marshall McLuhan and the Hitler Globe

2011-12-02T08:39:00.000-08:00

I read an article in the latest issue of Art News (Best of 2011) about a recently published book written by the late Marshall McLuhan and his son Eric titled Media and Formal Cause. This led me to discover a wonderful blog called McLuhan Galaxy. From there I found a great recording of Terence McKenna titled Riding Range with Marshall McLuhan.

I returned to Youtube yet again to view an amazing segment (found via Ptak Science Books) of the film The Great Dictator where Chaplin, dressed as Hitler, performs a dance with a globe. I next watched this clip of the final speech, and ended with this homage, titled Sons of the Silent Age with music by Philip Glass.

I Kid You Not

2011-11-13T05:41:00.000-08:00

Just in case you thought I was making the whole thing up here are the visuals. I was probably kidding about the prison part.

But it's time to make some serious decisions. Worst possible scenario is that I will be unable to pay my mortgages this winter and end up freezing to death on the street. I can't let that happen. Second scenario is that I won't be able to afford oil, we'll have another 20 degree winter lasting a 3-month stretch like last year and I will freeze to death even though I have a roof over my head. I'd like to avoid that also. Third scenario is that my well system totally fails and I can't have running water until spring when the ground thaws. Inconvenient but not life-threatening. I can always bring up water in a bucket.

So I guess I will put off doing any more work and risk the third scenario. At worst I will have a bad hair day that will last all winter.

Digging A Hole

2011-11-12T10:09:00.000-08:00

So, OK, I'll admit to it. I am a retard. I thought I could dig up my well pipe by tracing the leak from the floor under my shop window. My plan was to cut out the bad section of copper pipe once it was located, fit in a new piece, and thus solve my water problem myself in an affordable manner. I even had two volumes of Audel's Plumbers and Pipe Fitters Library (Drainage - Fittings - Fixtures and Materials - Tools - Calculatons) at the ready in addition to my recent bible: The New York Times Guide to Home Repairs Without a Man.

In final preparation I did a little research on Youtube:

George Carlin - How to Dig a Hole
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sISBcItCBM

Anonymous Kid - How to Dig a Deep Hole
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=crJcK3xcJtc

3 Guys - Digging A Hole ... 8 Feet Deep
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=IG-iY48f-m0

I started digging yesterday in a spot that seemed likely but soon reached the limitation of my tools: a shovel, a rock pick, and the length of my arm. So this morning I will admit defeat and fill in the hole.

If worse comes to worse there is always this idea to fall back on. A customer was telling me about this new prison program where inmates are given time off their sentences by taking classes. I can always get arrested, go to jail and study to become a journeyman plumber. When I am released I might give it another shot.

Love Is Blindness - Play List No. 5

2011-11-11T04:02:00.000-08:00

Jack White - Love Is Blindness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvLlIYuTC-Q&NR=1

Cassandra Wilson - Love is Blindness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7gomtA7c0A

Trespassers William - Love is Blindness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2R4F5OhWGc

I started this list on November 4th and never got back to it. The roof is done except for the cleanup. I have a back yard full of old shingles and a bunch of ladders against the buildings. If I ever wanted to elope now would be the time.

The back yard is a total disaster. The "hell pile" left by the former boyfriend was moved from its original place beside the barn foundation so the workers could roof the building. I sorted it into new piles (wood, metal, plastic and what-the-fuck) and it has grown exponentially in the process. I don't have a vehicle to haul it and I don't have the money to pay someone else. A couple of the piles are visible from the back window of the shop so I must relocate them to a more "discreet" area. I could cry over this desecration of my land but it would do nothing to improve the situation.

However, the roofs are done. That is the good news. But there is also more bad. I have a leak in the pipe that brings water from the well into the cellar. I am spending way too much money buying filters to get the sediment out of my water supply. There is a persistent wet area on the wooden floor of the shop just inside the front window caused by the leak. At least I know where the break is. As soon as it stops raining I will start digging in hopes of exposing the pipe. I am expecting an estimate from a well expert who wants to line my ancient dug well with tiles to prevent the stone walls from collapsing and then bring in a back-hoe to dig a five-foot deep trench from the well to the cellar wall and lay down new plastic pipe. He suspects the check valve before the pump needs replacement. Sounds like money I can't afford.

Oh yes, and on top of that I have had four gentlemen tinker with and/or voice opinion about my furnace and it still isn't running right yet!

Last night I had strange dreams that I remembered vividly upon awakening. (Must be that beaver moon!) It was dark and I heard a commotion outside. When I looked out I could see a giant white truck in the blackness that was hauling away a police cruiser which had crashed head-on into my tamarack tree. I opened the door to the shop and found a big bag tied with a bow left for me by a customer. When I opened the bag I found four kittens. I was still cleaning the barn attic of shingle pieces and nails from the roofing and had the hay door open. When I looked down into the yard I saw an eagle swoop from the tamarack and carry away one of the kittens.

How does one end a post like this? Just stop writing and get a cup of tea.

P.S. To those of you who would prefer to read about beads and art on my other blogs I apologize and hope to get on with my real life real soon.

Helpless/Dark Eyes - Play List No. 4

2011-11-03T19:46:00.000-07:00

Ryan Adams & Gillian Welch - Helpless
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn_wHHs3RkM&feature=related

Ryan Adams - When the Rope Gets Tight (Don't Fail Me Now)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sMZWB7pwlY&feature=related

Steve Earle & Gillian Welch - Sin City
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9DcdpU89Os&feature=related

Gillian Welch - Hickory Wind
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk6V7S7Skcc&feature=related

Gillian Welch - Hard Times
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k35haKwqY14&feature=related

Gillian Welch - The Way the Whole Thing Ends
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z8O_gH3p5M&feature=related

Joni Mitchell - Coyote
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSZcK48cTiU&feature=related

Joni Mitchell - A Case of You
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QZioxCg20I&feature=related

K.D. Lang - Helpless
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5KRVtjgMkM

Neil Young - Helpless
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2z7LXpAX3Q&feature=related

Patti Smith - Because the Night
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xACZHv-sLCg

Patti Smith - Gloria
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgNeBNMJFZs&feature=related

Bob Dylan & Patti Smith - Dark Eyes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNn4LFujg74&feature=related

Bob Dylan & Patti Smith - Dark Eyes [Version 2]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0ujFpypAoE&feature=related

Bob Dylan - Dark Eyes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx8_Lxv0TnE&feature=related

Jack Teagarden - Dark Eyes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MlFCDcP2zM

Hugh Laurie - Play List No. 3

2011-11-02T14:03:00.000-07:00

Cab Calloway - St. James Infirmary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBk3jwNSteo&feature=player_embedded

Hugh Laurie - St. James Infirmary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1x7AeEogGM&feature=related

Hugh Laurie - Crazy Arms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SjczMHE_Gk&feature=related

Hugh Laurie - Hallelujah I Love Her So
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB8PY-AXfdM&feature=related

Hugh Laurie - Careless Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ognBaIfdJmo&feature=related

Hugh Laurie - Six Cold Feet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BElkaHYqpU4&feature=related

Hugh Laurie - Police Dog Blues
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpbb76-9LHM&feature=related

Hugh Laurie - Swanee River
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AibZ6E13Iao&feature=related

Surfed into this discovery this morning and I'm in love.

Jesus, Mr. Laurie, where have you been all my life?!!

The Roof Saga - Part II.

2011-10-31T04:43:00.000-07:00

Just what is the "R" value of a torn painter's tarp? I'm curious to know because that is what is covering my barn right now! I went up into the attic over the bead shop the other day and I could see light through it where there were spaces between the boards. Seemed convenient at the time because I could find what I was looking for without going back for a flashlight but then I thought of the heating bill.

Really, though, I should not complain. After our first major storm I am one of the lucky ones with power right now. And today the roofers will be able to use their compressed air nail guns and get back to work.

Above is a shot of the back of the building. I knew there was a big storm coming so I picked up most of this before it became covered in snow. I filled a half dozen or so of those big plastic trash buckets.

Remember the "Bad News" comment I mentioned in an earlier post? Below shows the state of my kitchen roof before new plywood was installed. Pretty scarey, no?

Here's a closer look:

Here's the same roof all nicely restored with "ice and water" and "drip edge."

And here's the gallery building with the same treatment, ready for new shingles!

Halloween Head - Play List No. 2

2011-10-21T18:05:00.000-07:00

Ryan Adams - Halloween Head
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeVOweURMwA&feature=related

Ryan Adams - Let it Ride [via C.S.]
http://www.youtube.com/user/cafeselavy#p/a/u/0/dQUpu2x0eHA

Ryan Adams - The Fools We Are As Men [ibid.]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sb0uYoYXpRU

Ryan Adams - Let it Ride
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5GRJ7EflpA&feature=related

Ryan Adams - Gimme Sunshine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BGSrugS-Ls&NR=1

Ryan Adams - Funny How I'm Losin' You
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiNO2_GLVfE&feature=related

Ryan Adams - Rosebud (Jerry Garcia Tribute)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwlW3XSgtzM&feature=related

Ryan Adams - Pearls On A String
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b17GBA5zRZs&feature=related

Ryan Adams - Cobwebs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkjNSQpvXIU&feature=related

Ryan Adams - Hotel Chelsea Nights
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq745EJ06DY&feature=related

Moondoggies - Empress of the North
http://vimeo.com/29942247

Drew Christie - The Man Who Shot the Man Who Shot Lincoln
http://vimeo.com/26392743

Rick Danko - It Makes No Difference
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvvDwXg5ekY

The Band - It Makes No Difference
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSHzODm-Ik8&feature=related

The Band - I Shall Be Released
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0WMBYQL14U

Joe Cocker - I Shall Be Released
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dpyhl85MYmU&feature=related

The Roof Saga - Part I.

2011-10-21T09:19:00.000-07:00

I haven't been writing much these days because my life has been in an uproar since the beginning of October. First there was the TV interview which was a good thing, I think. (I hedge a little bit here because I have not yet seen the actual footage and I can't recall what I said!) But I had a great time and the producer, Cheryl Webb Scott, was fabulous.

Then there's the show at the Gafney Library with my friend Sharon. The artists reception was last night from 5-7 pm and I was late because I had a gentleman coming out to look at the New Furnace which is leaking a fair amount of oil (!!!).

Add to that the beaver invasion and all it's associated flooding of the yard and septic problems. Plus the little buggers stole my nice birch tree out on the point along with an apple tree that I was fond of.

And then on top of that, Hurricane Irene signed the death warrant for my ancient roofs. The kitchen roof developed 5 leaks, and rain began pouring into the barn that houses my bead shop. (I need to have three buckets handy to collect water which drips inconveniently on the front counter where I display my Daily Bracelets.) So I decided to get them all replaced.

The house is one of those typical old New England styles designed so all of the buildings are connected. (There is a marvelous book called Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn: The Connected Farm Buildings of New England that I discovered soon after moving here.) I'm having three roofs done: the "Little House" which is the kitchen, the "Back House" which is my gallery and mineral room, and the "Barn" which is my bead shop. The back porch roof, which is covered only in tar paper, will get new shingles as well.

All three of the roofs have 3 layers of old shingles that have to be removed first. They started by stripping the kitchen roof. When the building inspector saw the condition of the wood underneath he would not allow them to shingle it until new plywood is installed. The whole disaster was covered with tarps and then it rained for two days.

So today the sun is out and they are back at it. I have to close my bead shop today so they can work. I just went down to make a cup of tea in the kitchen and overheard the man in charge say "this is f---ing bad news" as they tore off the old boards to expose the timbers underneath.

I want to move to Florida and live in a rented trailer.

All Dressed Up for Halloween

2011-10-14T11:48:00.000-07:00

I spent some time this morning browsing through the images on the site of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and found these photos of Freddy and Emily dressed as Indians taken by Amelia Maria Ely Howe. (I'm actually using this post to keep track of where I left off: page 750 out of an incredible total of 10,474 pages of images!)

Seasonal Entertainment

2011-09-30T11:26:00.000-07:00

The fall holidays will soon be upon us. Here's Tom Waits with some surreal and ghoulish animation. . . and for the vegetarians, here's a hilarious recipe for cooking a paper turkey!

Walk Like An Egyptian

2011-09-28T06:30:00.000-07:00

Here's a cute clip called Sand Dance from 1934. The wood engraving is Le Sphinx (1928) by Iwan Gilkin.

And here's a little John Fahey: Yes. . . yes. . . yes!

Discovering George W. S. Trow

2011-09-26T08:16:00.000-07:00

I learned about George W. S. Trow this morning via Room 26 Cabinet of Curiosities. He wrote for the New Yorker. I've perhaps read him there and just don't remember. There is this New York Magazine article by Ariel Levy. And on Youtube, No Contest: A George Trow Memorial. [Cold childhood moving into frenzied adolesence!]

And in closing, here's a link to another Youtube clip of interest: Massmanipulation. [Happy days, indeed.]

OK, I lied. Here's one more: Simulacra.

If No One

2011-09-25T18:22:00.000-07:00

Joan Baez on Youtube. Have always loved her voice. And then there's Natalie Merchant. Which brings me to this one. Amazing that I have never noticed Natalie Merchant before. I don't get out.

Just a Little Music

2011-09-21T14:58:00.000-07:00

I first heard Beth Orton in her performance of a Leonard Cohen song (Sisters of Mercy from Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, 1995).

I also like this version by Ryan Adams.

Life Off the Top of My Head

2011-09-18T06:13:00.000-07:00

I love it when things piss me off. I take it as a good sign. The mind is still functioning. I am not brain-dead yet. This CNN article found linked on the blog Cafe Selavy really made me think. Here are some phrases of note taken from the article, along with my reactions to some of them:

Coming to terms with mistakes that cannot be undone.

From loss of security - final grace, freedom and new horizons.

Accepting surprise.

Paranoia, blame and defensiveness.

Learn from fairy tales like Cinderella.

Suffering is necessary.

The "False Self" must be abandoned.

First experience humiliation, loss and suffering before finding enlightenment.

Often forced on their journey by a crisis.

The key is not resisting the crisis.

Growth is accompanied by death of the "False Self" - the part of your self tied to achievements and possessions.

When your "False Self" dies you start learning how to base your happiness on more external sources.

External sources such as what? Facebook, TV's new fall line-up, Football, Mood altering drugs and other chemical substances?

How foolish is it to base one's happiness on external sources?!! Basing my happiness on external sources is what led me down the garden path to the trouble I am dealing with today. If I still based my happiness on external sources I would be in even bigger trouble right now. Experience has taught me that external sources cannot be trusted. External sources will woo you with false promises. External sources will be made conditional. External sources will fail when you need them most. External sources will drain your life of meaning.

Now, internal sources are a whole n'other ball game. Internal sources are private, strong and beautiful. Internal sources can never be taken from you against your will. Internal sources can never be used against you. Internal sources are the wellspring of all creative activity. Give me the internal over the external any day.

Those who break through the crisis and loose their "False Selves" become different people: less judgmental, more generous and BETTER ABLE TO IGNORE "EVIL OR STUPID THINGS." [my caps]

Evil as in the NWO? Stupid as this CNN article?

Many of us have met older people like this. They possess a "bright sadness": they've suffered but they still smile and give.

Suffering like prisoners in the Nazi concentration camps? Sadness like the homeless after mortgage foreclosure?

Learning the grace of failure.

Author has 'fans in high places who were touched by his insights.'

Yeah, I'll bet he does.

Aesop's Lesser Known Fable

2011-09-17T05:00:00.000-07:00

It was 34 degrees this morning at 6:45. I'm beginning to suspect we might skip fall and jump right into winter. The racoons have amazing coats and the cats are looking healthy in the fur department as well.

The chipmunks, like the fabled ants, have been collecting sunflower seeds like they are going out of style. I caught them the other day doing battle with a snake. I wish I had thought to use the video recorder in my camera. That snake struck repeatedly but the chipmunks were undaunted in their single-minded determination to haul away seeds!

Something On Your Mind

2011-09-15T05:13:00.000-07:00

Led to this on YouTube this morning while having my tea and my morning surf. Greenwich Village folk singer Karen Dalton was an early influence on Bob Dylan. She has inspired Joanna Newsom and Devendra Banhart as well. Wasn't she something!

Nostalgia

2011-09-14T17:19:00.000-07:00

I've always loved this Tom Waits song. I have the album but no turntable, so it was nice to find it on YouTube.

Day Off - Play List No. 1

2011-09-14T07:11:00.000-07:00

Alanis Morissette - All I really Want
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXCCv5ngyI0

Alanis Morissette - You Learn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBD7qeIYxH8&feature=related

Karen Dalton - Something On Your Mind
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wKevb4aGZw&feature=related

Karen Dalton - It Hurts Me Too
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-BIKjypNsE&feature=player_embedded

Karen Dalton - Little Bit of Rain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auiJPav_aPo&feature=related

Joanna Newsom - Emily
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ak8S8FN3ycA&feature=related

Devendra Banhart - Freely
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRQEmnhA8YU&NR=1

From Cafe Selavy - ?????
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jev0yK7lRjA&NR=1

Leighton Meester - Country Strong
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4FFgSmd8NU

The Wreckers - Lay Me Down
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS3l4Qa9ZzE&feature=related

John Fahey - Poor Boy Blues (acoustic guitar)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAZNPqciOWk&feature=related

John Fahey - Layla
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hksmiFIiANc&feature=related

John Fahey - Requiem for Mississippi John Hurt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxWNWq21GUE&feature=related

The Civil Wars - Falling (from C.S. blog)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkxFA7nzLFg&feature=relmfu

The Frames - Falling Slowly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGJ8dY_IcgE

The Frames - Lay Me Down
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNxxGKPCxrg&feature=related

Eagles - Desperado
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BwOXlGbW6Q&feature=related

Tory Amos - Desperado
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3Y_kuig1Rw&feature=related

Tory Amos - Cornflake Girl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Eiv7H9XQRY&feature=related

Tory Amos - Past the Mission
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qJLaLft2Vc&feature=related

Tory Amos - Baker Baker
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlWekXwPO1o&feature=related

Tory Amos - Cloud on My Tongue
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tf8oNq9uTPU&feature=related

Tory Amos - Pretty Good Year
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUB9EPNTgZI&feature=related

Tory Amos - Time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtythil5qwY&feature=related

Tom Waits - Time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_eR0IVSOhY&feature=related

Tom Waits - The Heart of Saturday Night
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7UHd7NVegE&NR=1

Joan Baez - The House Carpenter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VzGibeTuGs

Natalie Merchant - The House Carpenter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIQxDCRONAw&feature=related

Natalie Merchant - If No One Marries Me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHTiPiA-iq8&feature=related

Beth Orton - Sisters of Mercy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN2edpxeLpM

Beth Orton - Sweetest Decline
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1XQockmMas&feature=fvwrel

Ryan Adams - Sweetest Decline
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMagI_8OeJI&feature=related

Ry Cooder - Goodnight Irene
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gASQ1_HEEHA&feature=related

Ry Cooder - Paris Texas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6ymVaq3Fqk&feature=related

Ry Cooder - A Cowboy's Prayer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj5Z6CNXprQ&feature=related

Joe Cocker - Whiter Shade of Pale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX2977WKCbo&feature=related

Joe Cocker - With a Little Help From My Friends
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBR0T3f7tUw&feature=related

Joe Cocker - The Letter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RnjWLVyMps&feature=related

Joe Cocker - Lawdy Miss Clawdy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wWw0BSOon0&feature=related

Joe Cocker - Bird On A Wire
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDHmmoJ_lOc&feature=related

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Long As I Can See the Light
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA1n4oOYLfY&feature=related

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Have You Ever Seen the Rain?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDGuyGPJ_JE&feature=related

Allison Krause & Gillian Welch - I'll Fly Away
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdRdqp4N3Jw&feature=related

Gillian Welch - The Weight
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXf-SuBbJa0&feature=related

Gillian Welch - Winter's Come and Gone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYoqvm_-qN8&feature=related

Gillian Welch - Pancho and Lefty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5H3zlee_VRo&feature=related

Townes Van Zandt - Pancho and Lefty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SjwO17gsqU&feature=related

Townes Van Zandt - To Live is to Fly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5wrzwINOJM&feature=related

Byrds - Ballad of Easy Rider
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNjzzDNIJWw&feature=related

Van Morrison - It's All Over Now Baby Blue
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdb_3H-28dE&feature=related

Van Morrison - Here Comes the Night
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdb_3H-28dE&feature=related

Van Morrison - Baby Please Don't Go
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSSlksYXoR8&feature=related

Thoughts About Poverty

2011-09-14T05:40:00.000-07:00

I am alone, yet not alone. Is there any consolation in this?

Man In a Suitcase

2011-09-12T19:07:00.000-07:00

Wow, I just found Man In a Suitcase on Youtube. I was nuts about this TV show as a kid. Here's the theme music. And Donald Sutherland was in this episode, somehow bringing to mind the character he played in Nathanael West's classic, The Day of the Locust. Here's a 10 minute clip of the climax. Amazing film of a great book. Not the best thing to watch just before going to bed but there you go.

Unpublished Drafts: Nothingness Part 3.

2011-08-31T12:52:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been a while since I've posted anywhere. All summer I have been focused on beads and trying to coax people into the shop. I have made sign boards to prop up outdoors by the side of the road, and advertised in The Smart Shopper, a Maine paper featuring advertisements only. I have scheduled classes. I have been open 7 days since the middle of June. So, quite frankly, the idea of Irene blowing my house off the map was a welcome one. I was closed the day of the storm, but re-opened the following day (without power) as my house was spared after all.

The day before the storm I could not get this quotation from Joseph Campbell out of my head:

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

I was ready to accept total destruction at the hand of Nature, but it never came. Does that mean that I have the life that was waiting for me already? I guess time will tell. Meanwhile, here is the unpublished draft of Nothingness Part 3 written last spring when I was temporarily deranged:

The source of the experience of nothingness lies in the deepest recesses of human consciousness, in its irrepressible tendency to ask questions. The necessary condition for the experience of nothingness is that everything can be questioned. . . Whatever the massive solidity of institutions, cultural forms, or basic symbols, accurately placed questions can shatter their claims upon us. . . Because it lies so near to madness, the experience of nothingness is a dangerous, possibly destructive experience. But when it leads to changes in cultural or personal consciousness that are liberating and joyful, it is called, deservedly, a "divine madness."

A book by Bertrand Russell which I need to explore further is The Impact of Science on Society. Wise Up Journal has an interesting article: Impact of Science on Society - Part 1 - Scientific Technique and the Concentration of Power.

And this site on George Orwell has reprinted an essay on James Burnham's book Managerial Revolution (1941).

And I discovered J. B. S. [John Burdon Sanderson] Haldane who is mentioned in the introductory chronology in Virginia Woolf's last novel Between the Acts. Haldane's Daedalus, or Science and the Future was his paper read to the Cambridge Heretics in 1923. That led me to the response by Bertrand Russell titled Icarius or the Future of Science (link is to a .pdf file) originally published in 1924. Haldane was a pioneer geneticist. I need to explore his essays on science titled "Possible Worlds" published in 1927.

The Haldane-Russell connection led me to the site of The New Atlantis (A Journal of Science and Technology) where I found Daedalus and Icarus Revisited by Charles T. Rubin. The Oxford International Journal of Epidemiology published Commentary: The Six Biological Inventions in Haldane's Daedalus. And a book published by Oxford Press titled Haldane's Daedalus Revisited was reviewed in the Journal of Medical Genetics in 1995.

Son of Mica's Chippie

2011-07-13T12:28:00.000-07:00

I caught this little red squirrel on the porch eating sunflower seeds from the dish that I put on the table under Mica's window to attract the chipmunks. It's like virtual "Wild Kingdom" for cats.

Link Lists

2011-07-07T05:59:00.000-07:00

In the past I have kept all the art and graphics related links over on my collage blog, AnitaNH: Collage & Life, but recently I have been adding some to this blog as well. Now that I have a cable connection to replace my old slow dial-up, I have been able to better enjoy my "internet experience."

I have recently discovered the beauty of tumblr archives (a continuous array of thumbnail images showing the entire contents of a site at a glance) and have been enlarging my list of Cool Tumblr Sites over on my collage blog, linking to the archive page when available. For a nice example showing over 777 pictures of bookshelves (makes my ex-librarian heart beat faster just thinking about it) check out Bookshelf Porn.

The James Fitton poster illustrating this post is from Graphical Distractions via Words & Eggs. I do not post other people's images very often, but the primary dots in this one were impossible to resist!

Googling Myself: Collage Constipation

2011-06-29T05:50:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you, but I get a kick out of searching on my name to see what pops up. For the most part the results consist of hits on my blogs, Etsy shop, my web sites and my tumblr. Further down the list are hits on past comments I made on the blogs of friends. (Reminder to self: use restraint in making moronic statements that will inevitably come back to haunt me.)

Some time ago I noticed something cropping up under the title "Some Of The Great Collage Artists." The quip under the hyperlink reads: She is now the force behind AnitaNH: Collage & Life blog. She make use of postage stamps as well as ticket stubs, old photographs, book jackets and covers. . .

Apart from the grammatical error I was in favor of it. Whoever wrote it had read my interview on Marty Weil's Ephemera blog I thought. But recently I have noticed a great proliferation of the same unedited quotation under various sites seemingly unrelated to collage art: mymotocycleworld dot com, fatesattic dot com, xenuver dot com, borgmanconsulting dot com, & etc.

The funny thing, and the actual point of this post, is the way the original quip has further degenerated in translation to this: "She's right now the actual pressure at the rear of AnitaNH. . ."

Snapping Turtle Day

2011-06-22T05:55:00.000-07:00

I took this photo from the kitchen window on June 9th, but my computer died before I had a chance to publish it. (I'm back with a new computer and now I can catch up to the real world with the installation of high speed internet for less than it costs me for dial-up, at least for the first year.)

How amazing to see this snapping turtle laying eggs in the yard. Later that same day I encouraged a second snapper to move out of the road after I looked out my office window and noticed traffic driving over it but thankfully not running it over!

Two Unrelated Topics

2011-05-16T12:59:00.000-07:00

Saturday I noticed a group of wild turkeys out on the meadow.

And I just discovered a site called Pinterest which is described as a new social bookmarking site inspired by the bulletin board. It is graphic-intensive like tumblr only more so as it displays photos four columns across. I did a search on collage to see what would turn up.

Friday the 13th

2011-05-16T11:32:00.000-07:00

A recent commentary in the New York Times is titled Should This Be the Last Generation? Every time I look up and see these chemtrails over my house I wonder whether *WILL* This Be the Last Generation? is more to the point.

The three above were taken on May 13th around 9:30 am. I went outside to take a photo of the greening of the tamarak and got distracted. The bottom four were taken the same day around 7:50 pm.

Spring Is Really Here

2011-05-01T12:44:00.000-07:00

Hard to believe that a week ago yesterday we had snow. There are violets in the garden, the forsythia is in full bloom, and the tamarak has started to sprout new needles.

Jumping Into Etsy

2011-04-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

I have been talking about trying Etsy selling for a while and I finally took the plunge. I have set up a shop called AnitaNH in which I will offer jewelry and collage art. As of this posting I have yet to figure out Paypal so I haven't listed any items yet.

I did the fun thing, which was to design a banner with my dragonfly avatar on it. I tried to carry over the yellow background and green serif type from my newly renovated Anita's Bead Blog masthead.

The serif typeface is ITC Garamond and the script is called Bickley. Below is an updated version of the Etsy banner which includes a nicer ampersand as well as a mention of Anita's Beads.

And, how slick is this, I just figured that I can link any photo on the page. So when you click the revised banner it now connects to my Etsy shop.

Thoughts and Things

2011-04-27T06:18:00.000-07:00

things magazine is one of my favorite blogs for discovering new inspirations. (I list it under "Other Blogs You Might Like" over on the sidebar.) Today it mentions The Temporary Blog as an object-based blog. I feel honored to be included there.

A note to new visitors: You might also enjoy my blog about old books called Biblio -Dots. The art blog, AnitaNH:Collage and Life, is another repository for interesting images. And I publish my favorites on tumblr.

things magazine was originally founded in 1994 by a group of writers and historians based at the Victoria & Albert Museum/Royal College of Art in the belief that objects can open up new ways of understanding the world. They are now an independent magazine, with a reputation as a home for new writing – essays, reviews, short stories and poems – about objects and their meanings. Their website contains a weblog, photography galleries, special projects, searchable archives and the occasional on-line only article.

About Stones on Anita's Bead Blog

2011-04-25T14:33:00.000-07:00

I've been making up for lost time over on my neglected bead blog today. I am adding information about the properties of minerals in a category titled About Stones. As of this posting there are twenty-five descriptions with photographs all of which are indexed on the sidebar for easy retrieval. This information has been buried on both my Anita's Beads and Toad Hollow Mineral sites so I hope that getting it up on Anita's Bead Blog (which receives a surprising amount of traffic considering how infrequently I have been posting there) will help it find a wider audience.

Pictured above are some of my favorite free-form cabochons of Mexican crazy lace agate.

Little Goody Over-Shoes (An Easter Story)

2011-04-23T12:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's post was about a hat from Little Goody Two-Shoes. Today the weather (snow!) has made me think also about shoes. As a child, I loved Easter time because it meant getting a new hat, new shoes, and new white gloves. The shoes were the type known as "mary janes" which fastened with a strap and a buckle. They were made of black patent leather. My father would put an "x" of white surgical tape on both soles to prevent my slipping on the carpet.

Snow at Easter was a big disappointment as it necessitated wearing overshoes to mass to prevent damaging the new shoes. What was the point of wearing new shoes if no one could see them! Here I am (far right) sporting mary janes in my grandparent's living room with my cousins Kathy, Michael, and Pam many years ago.

The Considering Cap

2011-04-22T13:39:00.000-07:00

I just today learned (reading Roy Blount Jr.) about a type of hat called a "Considering Cap" the original source of which is the children's story "Little Goody Two-Shoes" published in 1765.

Said to be the universal cure for wrong-headedness, it prevented numberless disputes and quarrels. The cap was of three equal sides; on the first side of which was written, I MAY BE WRONG; on the second, IT IS FIFTY TO ONE THAT YOU ARE; and on the third, I'LL CONSIDER OF IT.

The directions inside strictly enjoined the possessor to put on the cap whenever he found his passions beginning to grow turbulent, and not to deliver a word whilst it was on.

I read about the Considering Cap in Alphabet Juice which is all about the strange relationships between words and their meanings. Roy is a funny guy. I also recommend his books One Fell Soup and About Three Bricks Shy of a Load. You can read the full text of Oliver Goldsmith's The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes (illustrated by lovely woodcuts) on the Internet Archive.

Nothingness Part 2.

2011-04-21T06:03:00.000-07:00

I ended my first post on Michael Novak's The Experience of Nothingness contemplating the effects of technological consciousness on American society and its contribution to the apocalypse in the form of mass insanity. Novak then turns to a discussion of the European experience of nihilism.

European thinkers, of course, immediately turned the experience of nothingness, which began to "infect" Europeans with increasing frequency in the nineteenth century, into an "ism"; they spoke of it ideologically, as nihilism. . . They had seen mythology, religion, and science express themselves in a brilliant sunrise of cultural history, each stage "higher" than the preceding; and then in the nineteenth century as they were stepping towards the peak of their achievement, on the threshold of a golden age, during nearly a century of relative world peace, they peered down into a fathomless abyss.

Contemplating the nothingness of my own experience, I am moved by these next few sentences:

The experience of nothingness is a mode of human consciousness; it occurs in human beings, not in cats or trees. . . One sees all too starkly the fraudulence of human arrangements. Every engagement seems so involved in half-truth, lie, and unimportance that the will to believe and the will to act collapse like ash.

[And apropos of nothing, I once recorded this some time ago in one of my notebooks: "Zen is just people trying to act like cats." I can't remember the original source.]

Nowak discusses three phases, as distinguished by Nietzsche, through which one passes to reach the abyss of nihilism:

When we have sought in all events a 'meaning' that is not there, nihilism is a 'recognition of the long waste of strength'; one is 'ashamed in front of oneself, as if one had deceived oneself all too long.' One had hoped to achieve something through one's actions 'and now one realizes that becoming aims at nothing and achieves nothing.'
A man will have 'a deep feeling of standing in the context of, and being dependent on, some whole that is infinitely superior to him.' This whole need not be God, but is, at least, some scheme like that of progress, or the advance of science, or the fate of civilization, all of which function as some form of deity. 'But, behold, there is no such universal! At bottom, man has lost the faith in his own value when no infinitely valuable whole works through him; i.e., he conceived such a whole in order to be able to believe in his own value.'
Given these two insights, that becoming has no goal and that underneath all becoming there is no grand unity in which the individual could immerse himself completely as an element of supreme value, an escape remains: to pass sentence on this whole world of becoming as a deception and to invent a world beyond it, a true world. Having reached this standpoint, one grants the reality of becoming as the only reality, forbids oneself every kind of clandestine access to afterworlds and false divinities--but cannot endure this world though one does not want to deny it.

I was planning to close this discussion of The Experience of Nothingness with some quotes from Nowak about the myth of the university. His ideas about education in the sciences helped illustrate Nietzsche's second phase listed above in which one loses the belief in the superiority of the advance of science. However, a related book came to my attention just yesterday titled The Scientific Outlook by Bertrand Russell. First published in 1931 and revised in 1949, the book served to reinforce my divorce from this belief in science in an alarming way. I will attempt to tie the two books together (and somehow make sense of it all) in a future post. Let me close with this quote from Nowak, which illustrates how I feel:

The experience of nothingness is an experience beyond the limits of reason. It arises near the borderline of insanity. It is terrifying. It makes all attempts at speaking of purpose, goals, aims, meaning, importance, conformity, harmony, unity--it makes all such attempts seem doubtful and spurious.

Groundhog Day!

2011-04-20T14:26:00.000-07:00

Today my cat Mica alerted me to the fact that our groundhog was taking up residence in her "summer burrow" in the slope of ground outside the kitchen window. After a while the blackberries will totally obscure the opening.

5 P.M. Visitor

2011-04-18T14:27:00.000-07:00

Look who I just saw in the stream out back: the great blue heron! He's out there hunting for frogs.

Ziuthres, Neologisms and Pretty Papers

2011-04-16T18:14:00.000-07:00

Back in early February in a post titled Cats Without Tails, I mentioned that I was reading the book The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It was recently called to mind again in reading The Wall, a book of short stories by Jean-Paul Sartre. The second story in the collection, titled "The Room" makes an interesting companion to The Yellow Wallpaper, as both share the common theme of insanity described and played out within the close confines of a single room.

Here are a few sentences used to describe the mentally unstable Pierre, confined to his room in the Sartre story:

People like that are children, you have to leave them alone with each other; they form a sort of freemasonry. . . He thought he was cleverer than all of us. He had a way of saying 'You're right' simply to end an argument. [p. 20]

That's my shorthand! It translates 'You're wasting your breath and I'm sick of listening to you.' I found these next bits to be interesting insight into the cause of his insanity:

Obviously, it was not Pierre's fault: his heredity was terribly loaded down. . . No, Pierre was not responsible. But still he had always carried that fault in him, it formed the base of his character. . . His nervous grace, the subtlety which pleased Eve so much when he was courting her were the flowers of madness. [p. 24]

Pierre's girlfriend Eve has been informed by the good doctor that Pierre will degenerate into raving lunacy in less than three years time. Now here comes the brilliant flowered wallpaper description:

Threats were written on the wall. Eve knew it but she could not read them. She often watched the big red roses on the wallpaper until they began to dance before her eyes. The roses flamed in shadow. Most of the time the threat was written near the ceiling, a little to the left of the bed; but sometimes it moved. . . There were also white discs on the wall that looked like slices of onion. The discs spun and Eve's hands began to tremble. [p. 34]

But Pierre's mind is even more unstable than Eve's. He has constructed a talismanic assemblage for the purpose of controlling the appearance of flying statues.

"Give me the ziuthre." Pierre said.

Eve got up and took the ziuthre: it was a collection of pieces of cardboard Pierre had glued together; he used it to conjure the statues. The ziuthre looked like a spider. [p. 35]

Such a mysterious word: ziuthre. I am attracted to it simply because a.) assemblage is related to collage and b.) there's wasn't much interesting turning up in a Google search (and no, I don't mean 'zither') but now there is this. Little more can be stated about it other than the fact that it can be considered a neologism and it has nothing to do with my next sentence.

I think perhaps I am trying to assuage my shadow side by the recent focus on loneliness, nothingness and now insanity. At any rate, I was pleased to make the connection between Gilman and Sartre via their use of wallpaper as a symbol illustrating mental deformation. And I will have more to say about The Yellow Wallpaper in a subsequent post so stay tuned.

Paris, Texas

2011-04-16T06:48:00.000-07:00

Last night I saw the film Paris, Texas (1984) for the first time. Here's the blurb from Netflix:

Director Wim Wenders is at his offbeat best in this "road movie" about weary drifter Travis Henderson (Harry Dean Stanton). In a quest to rebuild his life and reconnect with his son Travis -- who's been gone four years -- tries to untangle his thorny past with his wife (Nastassja Kinski). Dean Stockwell shines as Stanton's brother in this haunting study of an emotionally scarred man trying to heal a surfeit of psychological wounds.

I particularly enjoyed the sound track featuring Ry Cooder on slide-guitar and his fabulous interpretation of Blind Willie Johnson's "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground." And here's another couple of nice Ry Cooder tunes I noticed on YouTube: Vigilante Man and How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live.

I've never been to Paris, Texas (or Paris, France for that matter) but I have been to Paris, Maine for the purpose of mineral collecting!

No. 97

2011-04-14T07:21:00.000-07:00

The difference between Despair
And Fear -- is like the One
Between the instant of a Wreck --
And when the Wreck has been --

The Mind is smooth -- no Motion --
Contented as the Eye
Upon the Forehead of a Bust --
That knows -- it cannot see --

-Emily Dickinson

The Experience of Nothingness

2011-04-13T07:35:00.000-07:00

Michael Novak's The Experience of Nothingness (NY: Harper Colophon Books, 1971) is another find from the dump to be added to the category of The Best Books Are Thin. By way of introduction I should say that until recently, the significance of Novak's book would have been lost on me. Until I exposed myself to films like What A Way to Go and Endgame, I was blissfully under the influence of the consensus trance. It has been a painful awakening and there is no turning back.

Novak wrote this book in 1970, a fact which astonishes me. Back then I was a student in a suburban high school, and everything I was being taught was designed to strengthen the trance which, for my generation, had been initiated and then reinforced by television. The author so clearly saw through it all. Now, 40 year later, I both recognize the importance of his message and through it understand how insidiously the spell of consensus has twisted the "American Dream" into the nightmare that I see it as today.

Before I begin presenting quotations I would like to mention that The Experience of Nothingness needs to be experienced more than once. I found it useful to read the book through completely, at first ignoring the notes. Then, much like watching a film for the second time with the director's commentary turned on, I marked my place in the notes section to facilitate finding the proper place to clarify and enrich the now familiar text.

The experience of nothingness . . . is a vaccine against the lies upon which every civilization, American civilization in particular, is built. . . no man has a self or an identity; in a society like ours he must constantly be inventing selves. . . even the most solid and powerful social institutions, though they may imprison us, impoverish us, or kill us, are fundamentally mythical structures designed to hold chaos and formlessness at bay. . . The experience . . . dissolves the pragmatic solidarity of the American way of life.

Until recently, I was under the impression that this "American way of life" was as good as it gets, and stood as a shining example of what which every other nation on the planet should strive toward.

Many Americans imagine that the conditions of happiness can be satisfied by a balanced diet, suburban living, social status, and success in one's marriage and work. . . Americans smile and assure each other that they are happy, that it is unpatriotic for an American to be discontent. "AMERICA: LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT!" the bumper stickers say. . . In America things were always looking up. . . It seems indispensable to a technological society like ours to be future oriented, forward-looking, fascinated by hope. The illusion of progress is the prop that takes the place of God; many cling to it. Could Americans endure life without ever new frontiers? Our national psyche is ill at ease whenever progress, our most important product, is not evident.

"Hope" was the slogan of our most recently elected president. Are we still hopeful? And what price have we paid for "Progress"?

"The experience of nothingness" is an experience, not a concept. It can be pointed to, described, built up indirectly, but not defined. . . the primary sense of reality is shaped by parents and neighbors (local customs, raised eyebrows), partly by books ("the liberal tradition"), but mostly by cinema, television and records. . . Those whose sense of the meaningful, the relevant, and the real is not entirely shaped by the new media may feel themselves caught between two barbarisms. . . The laissez-faire attitude of American society in matters of the human spirit represents one of the greatest mass betrayals of responsibility by any civilization in human history. . . The young are forced to live through the problems of technological consciousness, problems created by generations who built a rational, efficient society without calculating in advance its effect upon human beings. The apocalypse may come, not by fire or flood, but by mass insanity.

Assessing the situation today I am horrified by the need to ask: what if the effects upon human beings were calculated in advance? I will stop for now and later take up in Part 2. the concept of European nihilism and what Novak describes as the myths of the university.

Finally It's Spring!

2011-04-12T12:14:00.000-07:00

Last night I heard the spring peepers for the first time in the marsh behind the house and in the fire pond across the street. What a glorious sound! The weather has been tantalizingly warm and only a few stubborn patches of snow remain in the yard.

And this afternoon I noticed my favorite red squirrel, named "Mica's Chippie," out back on the "chippie deck" warming himself in the sun. I can distinguish him from the other reds by the dark tip on his tail.

Loneliness: Part 2.

2011-04-12T10:25:00.000-07:00

My first post on Loneliness by Clark E. Moustakas, which I titled The Best Books Are Thin, dealt with the distinction made between existential loneliness and loneliness anxiety, and the contribution that the former makes to the creative urge.

I have often wondered whether the tendency toward the loneliness condition is a tendency one is born to, or is it a behavior which is learned in childhood that later becomes part of ones nature which contributes to the loneliness experienced as an adult. Moustakas believes:

Feelings of loneliness must often be hidden in childhood. . . like any intense, severe, disturbing emotion these feelings must be curbed, controlled, denied, or, if expressed, quickly resolved or eliminated. . . One aspect of this "cover up" campaign is that we make our children feel that "nice" people only have "nice" emotions. Children become afraid early to let others know how they actually feel. . . The child soon believes he can show his parents only an expurgated, carefully edited version of his inner life. He begins to suffer deep feelings of guilt and inadequacy. . . The natural loneliness of inner life becomes confounded and confused, and sometimes the child enters into the tragic loneliness anxiety of self-alienation. For this reason it is important to give children an opportunity to express their experiences of loneliness.

For various reasons I often experienced loneliness of the existential type growing up. I came to enjoy spending time alone in nature, loved to read, and involved myself in many creative types of solitary play. I even had imaginary friends as a pre-schooler. According to Moustakas, it may be an advantage if

. . . the lonely child is left alone, free of many of the usual pressures for conformity. Regarded as strange or peculiar, perceived as an isolate, he is free to experience his existential loneliness, to exercise and actualize this capacity and in the process to become sensitive and aware of the world in a deep and meaningful way. Loneliness is a creative experience when it emerges naturally from the individual self. . . The person who stands out in literature, music, art [or] science is often a lonely individual. He realizes creative forms through his own self.

The poet Emily Dickinson is a fine example of a creative individual who sustained her gift by living in isolation. For almost two decades she secretly loved a man whom she had seen only a few times, and this attachment served as an inspiration to a number of her poems. Moustakas describes Dickinson as:

. . . a rare, unusual, gifted person who could not find a place for herself in society, and whose only salvation was a lonely, solitary existence. . . She stated her convictions even when they removed her from the appropriate and acceptable modes of behavior and from the proper groups. . . in a little world where it was proper to think as the majority thought, and where the majority had much of its thinking done by someone else, she dared to express the sense of fitness cherished by the minority. . . Emily Dickinson did not give up the world but neither could she find herself in the world, so she retired from it. Only by violating a purity of self, only by denying her inspirations, and values and purposes, only by distorting her private perceptions and experiences could she achieve an acceptable place and be approved by others. . . She resisted by choosing a life of seclusion as the only way of life by which she could consolidate her resources and express her talents in unique, poetic forms. The loneliness and simplicity of her live enabled her to live in accordance with her private experiences and convictions and to realize her talents.

I admire the purity of Emily Dickinson's verse. To see a collage triptych in progress dedicated to this creatively lonely poet, visit my art blog AnitaNH: Collage & Life and read In Progress For Emily.

The Best Books Are Thin

2011-04-11T05:45:00.000-07:00

I've recently come to the conclusion that thin books are underrated. They are easily overlooked on the shelf. (Thick books command more attention there, and their elevated page count promises a more long-lasting experience.)

Loneliness by Clark E. Moustakas (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1961) which I am about to discuss here is a prime example of less being more. I found it at the dump a number of years ago. Due, no doubt, to its rather bland cover art and unappealing title, it was relegated to a box in the attic where I recently re-discovered it. And I count myself very fortunate that I did. It starts off with this poem by Laurens van der Post:

Get ready to weep tears of sorrow
as bright as the brightest beads,
and like the bright beads you string
to wear round your throat at the burial,
gather your tears and string them
on a thread of your memory to wear around
your heart or its shattered fragments
will never come whole again.

Now, I generally do not enjoy poetry but that one really grabs me! Then, in the dedication, the author makes mention of "the infinite loneliness of the unique" and the thought came to me that perhaps it is this feeling of uniqueness (which the artistic person uses as a springboard to creating) that is at the root of the condition. I'm going to quote Moustakas at length because so much of what he writes feels absolutely true for me.

. . . loneliness is a condition of human life, an experience of being human which enables the individual to sustain, extend, and deepen his humanity. . . Efforts to overcome or escape the existential experience of loneliness can result only in self-alienation. . . no person can remain unchanged once he opens himself to loneliness and surrenders himself to the terror and beauty of a totally isolated existence. . . When someone cares enough to see into the deepest roots of one's nature, though it is heart-rending to be known in this naked sense, it brings the deepest measure of unique and thrilling sensations. . . all creations in some way spring from solitude, meditation, and isolation. [from the Preface]

In a chapter titled "The Experience of Being Lonely," Moustakas writes:

There is a power in loneliness, a purity, self-immersion, and depth which is unlike any other experience. Being lonely is such a total, direct, vivid experience, so deeply felt, so startingly different, that there is no room for any other perception, feeling, or awareness. [p.8]

In "Concepts of Loneliness" he makes the distinction between existential loneliness and loneliness anxiety.

The loneliness of modern life may be considered in two ways: the existential loneliness which inevitably is part of human experience, and the loneliness of self-alienation and self-rejection which is not loneliness at all but a vague and disturbing anxiety. Existential loneliness is an intrinsic and organic reality of human life in which there is both pain and triumphant creation emerging out of long periods of desolation. . . Loneliness anxiety results from a fundamental breach between what one is and what one pretends to be, . . . The emphasis on conformity, following directions, imitation, being like others, striving for power and status, increasingly alienates man from himself. . . Perhaps the loneliness of a meaningless existence, the absence of values, convictions, beliefs, and the fear of isolation are the most terrible kind of loneliness anxiety. . . It is a type of chronic illness which debilitates the person and stifles any emergence of self or realization of capacities and talents. . . In attempting to overcome loneliness anxiety, the individual sometimes gives up his individuality and submerges himself in dependency relationships. . . It is possible to live too much in the world, to try to escape loneliness by constant talk, by surrounding one's self with others, by modeling one's life from people in authority or with high status. . . Everything is geared toward filling and killing time to avoid feeling the emptiness of life and the vague dissatisfaction of acquiring possessions, gaining status and power, and behaving in appropriate and approved ways. The escape from loneliness is actually an escape from facing the fear of loneliness. [pp. 24-32]

Isn't that profound: the escape from facing the fear of loneliness! I have been so guilty of trying to do just that. But having made the realization, I am set free. I will close with some quotations on loneliness of the second, and more "genuine" type: existential loneliness.

In contrast to the loneliness anxiety of modern life is the inevitable, real loneliness of genuine experience. . . It takes creative courage to accept the inevitable, existential loneliness of life, to face one's essential loneliness openly and honestly. It requires inner fortitude not to be afraid or overwhelmed with the fear of being and the fear of being alone. . . Its fear, evasion, denial, and the accompanying attempts to escape the experience of being lonely will forever isolate the person from his own existence, will afflict and separate him from his own resources so that there is no development, no creative emergence, no growth in awareness, perception, sensitivity. . . Ultimately each man is alone but when the individual maintains a truthful self-identity, such isolation is strengthening and induces deeper sensitivities and awareness. In contrast, self-alienation and estrangement drive one to avoid separation. The fear of loneliness is a sickness which promotes dehumanization and insensitivity. In the extreme, the person stops feeling altogether and tries to live solely by rational means and cognitive directions. This is the terrible tragedy of modern life--the alienation of man from his own feelings, . . . the fear of man to experience his own loneliness and pain. . . [Thomas] Wolfe believed that loneliness is an essential condition of creativity, that out of the depths of grief, despair, and the shattering feeling of total impotency springs the urge to create new forms and images and to discover unique ways of being aware and expressing experience. [pp. 33-35]

I will write further on Loneliness by Clark E. Moustakas in another post. Part two will be concerned with loneliness in childhood, and how isolation formed the creative life of the poet Emily Dickinson.

Sky: Here and Now

2011-04-09T05:37:00.000-07:00

If the rumors I have been hearing are true and the government is indeed shut down does that mean the "chemtrail" program will be curtailed? One can only hope.

Today There Were Robins

2011-04-04T14:15:00.000-07:00

Today we had more snow and the yard was filled with a flock of robins eating the last few berries from the thorn bushes.

Art of War & Max Ernst

2011-04-04T10:53:00.000-07:00

I found a copy of Report From Iron Mountain On the Possibility and Desirability of Peace (NY: Dial Press, 1967) at the dump. It has been sitting on my shelf for a couple of years now. I recently saw something about it which made me decide to finally sit down and read it. There is background information about The Report on wikipedia. Some say it is satire while others claim that it is not. Either way, it's an eye opener for me!

There are a couple of paragraphs related to art which I quote here are from Section 5: The Functions of War.

The declared order of values in modern society gives a high place to the so-called "creative" activities. . . Of all the countless dichotomies invented by scholars to account for the major differences in art styles and cycles, only one has been consistently unambiguous in its application to a variety of forms and cultures. However it may be verbalized, the basic distinction is this: Is the work war-oriented or is it not? Among primitive peoples, the war dance is the most important art form. Elsewhere, literature, music, painting, sculpture, and architecture that has won lasting acceptance has invariably dealt with a theme of war, expressly or implicitly, and has expressed the centricity of war to society. The war in question may be national conflict, as in Shakespeare plays, Beethoven's music, or Goya's paintings, or it may be reflected in the form of religious, social, or moral struggle, as in the work of Dante, Rembrandt, and Bach. Art that cannot be classified as war-oriented is usually described as "sterile," "decadent," and so on. Application of the "war standard" to works of art may often leave room for debate in individual cases, but there is no question of its role as the fundamental determinant of cultural values. Aesthetic and moral standards have a common anthropological origin, in the exaltation of bravery, the willingness to kill and risk death in tribal warfare.

It is also instructive to note that the character of a society's culture has borne a close relationship to its war-making potential, in the context of its times. It is no accident that the current "cultural explosion" in the United States is taking place during an era marked by an unusually rapid advance in weaponry. This relationship is more generally recognized than the literature on the subject would suggest. For example, many artists and writers are now beginning to express concern over the limited creative options they envisage in the warless world they think, or hope, may soon be upon us. They are currently preparing for this possibility by unprecedented experimentation with meaningless forms; their interest in recent years has been increasingly engaged by the abstract pattern, the gratuitous emotion, the random happening, and the unrelated sequence. (Pp. 51-53)

The label of "decadence" brought to mind the lovely painting by Max Ernst (shown in Peter Schamoni's film) titled The Creation of Eve, or, La Belle Jardiniere, The Beautiful Gardener that was last seen exhibited in one of Hitler's shows featuring degenerate art. I was very pleased to find this site which reproduces the entire film in a series of still images beginning here. Here is shown another of my favorite paintings by Ernst: Fireside Angel.

All of the Ernst links are to a site called The Ralph Nader Library. Check out their Site Map for a list of more interesting items!

Nuisance Animal Control

2011-04-02T09:49:00.000-07:00

I've been looking for copyright free images for my friend Roy, the trapper who helped me out with my gray squirrel invasion. These are candidates for business cards I am designing for him. All images are from Johnson's Natural History, Comprehensive Scientific, and Popular, Illustrating and Describing the Animal Kingdom, with its Wonders and Curiosities, From Man Through All the Divisions, Classes, and Orders, to the Animalculae in a Drop of Water; Showing the Habits, Structures, and Classification of Animals, with Their Relation to Agriculture, Manufactures, Commerce, and the Arts by S. G. Goodrich, Beautifully Illustrated with 1,500 Lifelike Engravings. (New York: A. J. Johnson, Publisher, 1870).

They really got some mileage out of a title page back in those days, didn't they? Some day I will do a more comprehensive treatment of this on Biblio - Dots .

Yet Another Example

2011-03-31T12:26:00.000-07:00

This kid looks like he's in early training to be a "chemtrail" pilot! The product this illustrates offers "total protection" but does it really?

Chemtrails in Advertising

2011-03-30T16:33:00.000-07:00

Just a couple of days ago I noticed an article about the proliferation of chemtrail images in advertisements and videos. I had recently remarked about noticing one in a selection from Netflix. Today's mail brought this astonishing example. Right now I have a Gateway. I don't think I will be switching to the competition any time soon!

Search "chemtrails in advertising" and study the results. Here's one interesting quote:

The constant viewing of these images in all media has served to normalize them and place them beyond the range of conscious awareness.

And how about this one:

. . . the federal government some time ago openly admitted to cooperative efforts with Hollywood producers to introduce themes into programming which will bring about attitudinal changes among viewers thought to be "socially beneficial" . . .

You can read more here.

And you might also be interested in taking a look at this interview by Jim Redden with Dr. Len Horowitz. Here's an excerpt:

REDDEN: A point of clarification. Are you saying that the fungus is working with the chemtrails and the antibiotic to make people sick?
HOROWITZ: Exactly, And you've got somebody who's going to be chronically ill. And in the contemporary warfare arena, where experts in biological chemical warfare convene and discuss the ways that are ideal to conduct warfare today, to really take an enemy out, you don't want to kill the people. You want to produce people who are chronically ill and become dependent on the state and totally sap the resources of the country. And then you can move in further with your military-medical-industrial complex, your international medical-pharmaceutical cartel. And then you sell these beleaguered and defeated countries all of the pharmaceuticals and chemicals that
they need to maintain any semblance of healthy function.

Wait a minute, does that scenario sound kind of familiar? Read the whole interview. It is worth your time.

Dysphoria

2011-03-28T07:55:00.000-07:00

My friend Yola recently gave me a stack of New Yorker magazines from 2008. I came across a new word which immediately attracted me as a possible collage title: Dysphoria. My dictionaries do not include it so I went online. There is something called Sexual Dysphoria, found in Wikipedia, which also has a brief listing for Species Dysphoria. The species variety is a condition in which someone feels they are meant to be a non-human creature (most likely an animal) as if they are "an animal trapped in a human body."

I took a few minutes to consider this in light of my admiration for cats. I would enjoy coming back as a cat, I think, although I would prefer not to be an outdoor New Hampshire cat in winter. I've had enough of the cold in this life, thank you.

Species Dysphoria is related to Therianthropy which describes someone who feels that they are an animal in a spiritual or psychological way. Now we're getting closer to home. The Wikipedia write-up is pretty interesting. There is even a term specific to cats: Ailuranthropy, or transformation into a feline.

The Snake Dream

2011-03-24T09:56:00.000-07:00

I had an unsettling dream about snakes last night. Could this be my plague #4? In the dream I was looking out the bedroom window and saw a writhing mass of snakes on the patch of lawn outside the "L" of the house right where I saw yesterday's chipmunk. The snakes were black with green areas, and there were a few big ones as fat as man-killing pythons, along with a hundred or so baby snakes the size of garter snakes. As I looked down the mass of snakes started to untangle and spread out. Two of the big ones tried to get into the kitchen windows as the rest started to fan out over the yard.

Just as I thought about getting my camera to take a photo the doorbell rang and I woke up. It was still dark out and too early for visitors. I couldn't tell whether the cat who had been asleep beside me had been awakened by a sound or by my sudden movement, so I decided to ignore the bell and went back to sleep.

Snakes can be symbols of transformation: life, death and rebirth. People who are dying or have lost a loved one often dream of snakes at or near the time of death. Snakes can also represent evil, and are considered by some to be a phallic symbol. Snakes indicate trouble in your life, or they could mean that something is worrying you and needs to be resolved by you.

Well, if that was Trouble ringing my bell last night, I'm glad I didn't go to the door!

The illustration is from Reptiles and Birds by Louis Figuier (London: Cassell, 1892). To see more illustrations from this fascinating book, visit my Biblio - Dots blog. I've also posted some snake skin scans over on AnitaNH: Collage & Life, as well as another snake engraving from The Youth's Companion.

Chipmunk Season

2011-03-23T16:09:00.000-07:00

I saw this little guy from the kitchen window this morning. He's heading for the bird feeder in the back yard.

10 Plagues of Wakefield?

2011-03-22T04:42:00.000-07:00

OK, I've been dealing with the squirrel problem. There are three red squirrels that hang out in the yard but so far they are staying out of the house. I can hear them in the attic over the shop from time to time but that's fine if they want to hang out up there. The destructive gray ones who kept me awake chewing through my walls and fighting with each other at 5 a.m. (plague #1) are gone, at least for the time being.

So now we have been delivered plague #2: skunks! This is the first time I've ever had a problem with skunks. The neighborhood is probably full of homeless ones seeking shelter now that my neighbor has cut down all the lovely old pine trees.

I had a dream two nights ago which started out beautiful. I was digging in sandy soil a ways back from a road and pulling out huge green and pink tourmaline crystals, smoky quartz clusters, and selenite wands. Afterwards I paid a visit to a house I noticed on the other side of the road and mentioned to the owner to watch out for their dog because it was chasing a skunk. I woke up to a house reeking of skunk!

They must be getting into the barn cellar because the whole shop smells intensely of skunk. Enough to make your eyes water. Opening doors and windows did not help much, nor did lavender essential oil mask the odor to any great extent. My friend Trudy reminded me of the moth ball cure so now I have a shop that smells like a mixture of skunk and mothballs!

And while I am on this nature rant, let's count snow as plague #3. Despite the fact that I am totally sick of the white stuff, it is back. At least it is silent and odorless.

My friend the redwing blackbird was calling from the top of the pine tree when I took these photos at 6 this morning.

It's Melting!

2011-03-14T08:14:00.000-07:00

The snow is beginning to melt! Compare the above photo to this one taken less than three weeks ago. I can see patches of bare ground in the woods across the street. Yesterday morning I heard the redwing blackbirds out on the marsh for the first time, and today I saw one of my friendly chipmunks above ground.

And now with the clocks set ahead one hour and considerably more daylight in the evening I feel like I am finally coming out of hibernation. With a little more reduction of those street-side snowbanks I will be out walking again. Hooray!

First Thaw of the Year

2011-03-07T11:22:00.000-08:00

The photos above were taken out the back window of my shop at about noon. The one below is from the library window. No sooner had I started to write this post when the rain turned to snow. A little taste of spring that quickly reverted back to winter!

They're Back!

2011-03-04T10:38:00.000-08:00

Here's the view up the road that goes by my house. I think I am going to track how often I observe these chemtrails. Funny how once you become aware of them you really start to take notice. I watched Jeff Tweedy: Sunken Treasure from Netflix the other night and there were chemtrails in the sky over Seattle where he performed back in 2006.

I'm Not Dead, It's Tax Time

2011-02-26T08:15:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted anywhere in a bit of a while so I am checking in here just to let folks know that everything is fine. Business taxes are due on the 15th of March and in my typical fashion I have been avoiding the whole issue. So lately I have been punishing myself by denying myself the finer things in life, blogging (with this post as the exception) and recreational reading, until I get those numbers crunched.

I am getting my exercise keeping my paths shoveled after the latest storm. I have not frozen in a snow drift like the Little Match Girl! Above is a shot from the kitchen window. The pathway in the center goes around the building to the barn cellar door. Below is a view from the parking area in front.

Below is a shot of my poor little sign now hidden behind the growing showbanks! Just to the left of the sign is another pathway which has to be kept open for oil delivery and electric meter reading. I've given up on the paths to the front door and the porch door.

Below is a shot of the protective covering that the Electric Co. recently put over my wires. You can see the hole that has become the most great revolving door for squirrels right behind the center black tie-down. I'm sure some of my friends are as tired of hearing me speak about the little varmints as I am of listening to them chew through my walls! The good news is steps are being taken to solve the problem.

And below is one more photo that illustrates what I believe is either a sign of spring or grasping at straws. The raccoons are out and about and have created a little trail that circumnavigates the house.

(27 February: Here's an interesting note. Last year on March 19th in a post about the return of the redwing blackbirds I mentioned that I had begun to uncover my perennial gardens. I predict that I will NOT be doing so 20 days from today! More snow is falling. . .)

Happy Trails?

2011-02-17T04:22:00.000-08:00

Is Wednesday night bargain night for flights to Canada or did someone get seriously lost? I've never seen so many condensation trails before. Wikipedia calls them contrails and the conspiracy theorists call them chemtrails.

On a more positive note, the full moon coming up tomorrow is called the "wolf moon."

Lovely Frida

2011-02-08T05:57:00.001-08:00

Just Catching My Breath

2011-02-08T05:07:00.000-08:00

Look how beautiful it is this morning! It's nice to just appreciate the world in the moment as one would have as a child. To put global warming and rainforest destruction and all other abstract concepts of a world gone mad on the back burner (along with the more pressing concerns like this month's fuel bill and the fact that last month's bill has not yet been paid) and just focus my attention on nature's perfection in my own back yard. It is indeed a wonder to behold.

Standing On the Edge

2011-02-07T06:05:00.000-08:00

I could not watch What A Way to Go (available on DVD from Netflix) again last night. I do need to watch it again to see if I feel differently about it (less of a feeling of futility, more of anger perhaps) after a second viewing. There are some books and authors mentioned that I need to make note of as well.

I'm glad that I have Roszak's The Voice of the Earth to fall back on. I understand it as being a psychological or intellectual safety net to buffer my fall from that window of reality that the film so chillingly opened. The book is opening my mind to ideas new to me, as well as furthering my understanding of Freudian and Jungian psychology which seem to re-appear in all of my reading lately.

The Voice of the Earth provides a positive continuum to the largely undiscussed research that I have been undertaking over the past couple of years. And I can begin to appreciate the purpose of that research: to open my mind to the reality of such a thing, given the tendency we in the industrialized world have to block it out. (Indeed, our denial of its very existence is encouraged by the brain-numbing consensus trance which the mass media so relentlessly enforces.) This research answers my question of why things took such a turn and how it was allowed to happen.

I do not have time to belabor these points any further this morning. Those who know me are aware of the personal upheaval that has colored my life over the past few months. Perhaps that abrupt change, with all its attendant soul-searching and emotional healing is, at least in part, catalyst to my current change in awareness. All I know for certain is that something very important is happening to me right now, which is profoundly affecting my world view, my understanding of self, and the future of my expression through my art.

The End of Empire

2011-02-06T06:15:00.000-08:00

I watched What A Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire on DVD last night. I must say that combined with the books I have been reading lately (Jerry Manders' In the Absence of the Sacred and Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, Theodore Roszak's The Voice of the Earth, and Chellis Glendinning's My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization and When Technology Wounds) the result was synergistic!

The film starts with the image of a man on a windowsill preparing to jump to his death on the city street below. And despite the films closing in a walk back to nature to stand with others of the like mind to build an ark which might save mankind, the story comes full circle for me. I feel I am posed on the sill ready to take the fatal plunge.

Everyone should see this film. It's no doubt too late but watch it anyway in the off-chance that it will inspire an action that will make some sort of difference, even a slight action towards ecological amends. There's nothing new here, really. Unless you have lived your entire life with your head in a paper bag (and take it from me, I've tried to do just that intermittently--it's hard to maintain) you know that the issues are: global warming and the ozone layer, peak oil, overpopulation and consumption, man's inhumanity to man, beast and the planet at large, and mass extinction.

As someone born in the 50's, I found the imagery to be familiar, nostalgic, and chillingly revealing. We've been handed a snow job since birth thanks to Madison Avenue's spin on the wonder's of science. I will no doubt need to watch this film again, many times, to absorb it all. To do this will be as painful as it is necessary.

I'll admit that up until now I could secretly applaud myself. I'm a poor consumer. I don't own a car, a cell phone, an iPod, a microwave oven, a television, a radio, a snowmobile, a leaf blower, or a passport. I do not travel. I do not buy clothes unless something essential wears out. I do not have medical insurance so it follows that I do not subject my body to invasive and unnecessary x-rays, scans and immunizations. I don't eat beef or cage-raised chicken eggs, or foods with high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners.

Here's what I will do as a result of my consciousness-raising exploration: I will grow my own food. This spring I will start a garden. My friends Trudy and Peter have set magnificent examples. I will also, it goes without saying, continue to express my feelings about the state of things in my art.

Cats Without Tails

2011-02-05T05:37:00.000-08:00

Theodore Roszak's book is an important read and so intense that I find I must walk away from it every so often. I picked up a couple of books at the library from their $1. shelf that make a nice intermission from The Voice of the Earth. (I almost used the word "respite" but that would imply a suspension of punishment, which is not quite appropriate here.)

The two, which make for interesting reading in tandem, are: A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf and The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman. I've taken the title for this post from Mary Gordon's foreward to the Woolf book, which I want to encapsulate here today, and will save discussion of The Yellow Wallpaper for another time.

A Room of One's Own was published in late 1929. Feminist writing was no longer in vogue now that female suffrage had been achieved. Indeed it was seen as superfluous by a public that was focusing its attention on the Wall Street market crash and the world economic crisis.

Wolfe concerns herself here with the fate of the extraordinary woman.

Genius needs freedom; it cannot flower if it is encumbered by fear, or rancor, or dependency, and without money freedom is impossible. . . When the writer's personal grievances intrude, the art is muddied, cracked.

Instead, Wolfe believes good literature springs from the following: serenity, selflessness, and freedom from rage. She sums up the tenor of her time:

. . . we who live after the First World War have lost something beautiful, some necessary grace. We do not hum under our breaths; we are cats without tails; we are encumbered by our anger, our sense of doom, more important, perhaps, by our sexual self-consciousness.

Wolfe believed that lack of privacy and a tradition to follow were great impediments to women in the literary field.

Yet the hiddenness, the anonymity of women's lives has endowed them with a great beauty, and the challenge Woolf gives to women writers is to capture these lives in all their variety.

Gordon quotes Woolf as saying:

Above all, you must illumine your own soul with its profundities and its shallows, and its vanities and its generosities, and say what your beauty means to you or your plainness, and what is your relation to the everchanging and turning world.

The creative act is encapsulated:

What is important, what is essential, is that works of genius be created. In that writers' unhappiness interferes with their creation, one should be concerned with the happiness of writers. The important thing is that they must express reality; they must express their genius, not themselves. They must illuminate their own souls, but they must not allow the souls to get in the way of reality.

So this gives me something to think about in relationship to art in general and my creation of collage in particular. I see myself trying to self-insulate from a world without grace, as a cat with neither tail nor fur, thus unprotected and unable to exist in the mainstream. I am happy where I am, slightly removed by geographic location and refusal to participate in mass media and transportation.

I allow too much of the soul to permeate my work if I measure it by Virginia Woolf's standard. (Perhaps its legitimacy is lessened even further by my attempt to mould my own reality.) My personal grievances not only intrude, they are often the motivation behind a piece. But I am up to the challenge of capturing my life in all its variety both in my art and my blogging! And I am grateful to both Virginia Wolfe and Mary Gordon for their inspiration to examine my purpose for doing so more closely.

Is It Too Late?

2011-02-04T13:47:00.000-08:00

The Voice of the Earth is perhaps the most meaningful book I have read to date.

. . . the species that destroys its own habitat in pursuit of false values, in willful ignorance of that it does is "mad" . . . A culture that can do so much to damage the planetary fabric that sustains it, and yet continues along its course unimpeded, is mad with the madness of a deadly compulsion that reaches beyond our own kind to all the brute innocence about us. We are, in ways that have been expertly rationalized, pressing forward to create a monocultural world-society in which whatever survives must do so as the adjunct of urban industrial civilization. (Theodore Roszak, 1992)

I'm only on page 70. There's lots to learn here.

Sitting Out the Storm

2011-02-01T09:09:00.000-08:00

It's snowing to beat the band outside! Today and tomorrow my shop is closed and I am spending time by the wood stove with a few good books. I have three purchased from Alibris for 99 cents a volume that I am reading concurrently. There are two by Chellis Glendinning: My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1994) and When Technology Wounds (NY: Morrow, 1990) plus a third by Theodore Roszak titled The Voice of the Earth: An Exploration of Ecopsychology (Touchstone, 1992).

Removing it from the scanner I opened Roszak's book at random to a section titled "IMAGO MUNDI" on the artistic genre combining cosmology and psychology.

Until the universe came to be seen mathematical artifact best understood by numbers and formulas, natural philosophers freely employed religious symbols, myths, and poetic metaphors to depict and explain the world they lived in. . .Through deep self-knowledge, human beings might each ideally become microcosms in their own right, distillations in body, mind and spirit of all the universe around them. In this sense, a microcosm was a sort of mandala, the symbolic circle used in Eastern cultures to concentrate the mind during meditation.

I also just added What A Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire, a documentary which features Chellis Glendinning along with my hero, Jerry Mander, to my Netflix queue.

And here is a great Theodore Roszak interview from Thinking Allowed: Conversations On the Leading Edge of Knowledge and Discovery with Dr. Jeffrey Mishlove.

Winter in Wakefield, New Hampshire

2011-01-27T08:53:00.000-08:00

I feel like I am living in an altered landscape not of my own choosing. . .

I watched The Ice Storm with Kevin Kline, Tobey Maguire and Joan Allen on DVD last night. I will henceforth avoid sitting on metal guardrails!

Ouija Boards

2011-01-26T19:23:00.000-08:00

Don't miss Collector's Weekly's excellent article on The Mysterious Origins of Ouija Boards. My aunt worked for Parker Brothers in Salem, Massachusetts when I was a kid, and we had just about every game they published, including the Ouija Board!

Above is an attempt to improve a mediocre photograph by adjusting the image using a gradient. It's a happy accident. I don't know anything about it and may not be able to duplicate the effect ever again which is probably a good thing.

A Popular View of the Space Race

2011-01-22T10:02:00.000-08:00

Just found this neat cover in a stack of old magazines. . . another 1959 view of the "space race" from Popular Mechanics!

According to this artist's conception, the Russians were ahead so to compensate he made ours bigger (and gave it more balls) ?!

Check out digital collage inspired by this cover here on my art blog.

What's Wrong With the World

2011-01-21T06:09:00.000-08:00

My G.K. Chesterton book, What's Wrong With the World, has been returned, and it's interesting to flip through and see what seemed to me to be important passages. I've been reading with highlighter in hand these days. The activity of collage making has opened the floodgates of transgression against the printed word. Marking significant passages seems mild in view of the more serious crime of removing entire pages!

Bear in mind that the book was originally published in June of 1910. Here's the first bit I focused on:

"Efficiency," of course, is futile for the same reason that strong men, will-power and the superman are futile. That is, it is futile because it only deals with actions after they have been performed. It has no philosophy for incidents before they happen; therefore it has no power of choice. An act can only be successful or unsuccessful when it is over; if it is to begin, it must be, in the abstract, right or wrong. There is no such thing as backing a winner; for he cannot be a winner when he is backed. There is no such thing as fighting on the winning side; one fights to find out which is the winning side.

And on the same page:

No man demands what he desires; each man demands what he fancies he can get. Soon people forget what the man really wanted first; and after a successful and vigorous political life, he forgets it himself.

Here's a good aphorism:

A doctrine is a definite point; a prejudice is a direction.

And more from his chapter titled "The New Hypocrite:"

. . . it is enough to say that unless we have some doctrine of a divine man, all abuses may be excused, since evolution may turn them into uses. It will be easy for the scientific plutocrat to maintain that humanity will adapt itself to any conditions which we now consider evil. The old tyrants invoked the past; the new tyrants will invoke the future. . . Men need not trouble to alter conditions; conditions will soon alter men. . . To all this plausible modern argument for oppression, the only adequate answer is, that there is a permanent human ideal that must not be either confused or destroyed.

And from the next chapter, "The Fear of The Past:"

If I am to discuss what is wrong, one of the things that are wrong is this: the deep and silent modern assumption that past things have become impossible. . . Our modern prophetic idealism is narrow because it has undergone a persistent process of elimination. We must ask for new things because we are not allowed to ask for old things.

He goes on to discuss the difference between the ancient and universal things and the modern and specialist things, describing the plight of the traveler finding a telephone in the desert:

You can telephone with a telephone; you cannot do anything else with it. And though this is one of the wildest joys of life, it falls by one degree from its full delirium when there is nobody to answer you.

On the division between the sexes he says:

Cleverness shall be left for men and wisdom for women. For cleverness kills wisdom; that is one of the few sad and certain things.

And I will close with this, which I like very much:

. . . the definition of an art is that which must be personal and may be perverse.

Official Retraction

2011-01-20T09:48:00.000-08:00

OK, I'll admit it. In the right frame of mind I could listen to Tumbleweed Connection again. I liked it well enough back then to save a review from the December 14, 1970 issue of Time (click page to enlarge).

Closing the Book On 1959

2011-01-20T08:17:00.000-08:00

I came across a scan of this Popular Mechanics cover from December 1959 featuring a story titled "I Lived With the Astronauts."

Right now I am reading Jerry Mander's In The Absence Of the Sacred for a second time. (I first read it back in July as a diversion to help me get over the death of Miss Pearl.) And I am waiting for another 99 cent Alibris purchase to come in the mail: My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization. How could I resist a book with a title like that?

Fred Kaplan's 1959

2011-01-16T08:16:00.001-08:00

I just finished reading a very interesting book by Fred Kaplan called 1959: The Year Everything Changed (Wiley, 2009). I was 4 years old when the year began, and when it ended I was 5. It was a year when everything changed for me personally as well. My parents sold their house on Cabot Street in Beverly, Massachusetts and purchased a new house (the first on the street) in Danvers which was one town over. While construction on the house was being completed, we spent six months living with my grandparents in Salem, and those were probably the best six months of my life!

Kaplan turned 5 years old in 1959 as well, which made his disclosures about the year even more significant to me. Coverage includes writers: Norman Mailer's quest for his true voice to reflect his present state of mind, the merging of his life and his art, his life as art; Allen Ginsberg, creator of "intensely personal, nakedly emotional, magically prophetic" poems; and William Burroughs who once said "I'm apparently some kind of agent from another planet, but I haven't got my orders decoded yet." Burroughs claiming to be ". . . trying, like Klee, to create something that will have a life of its own, that can put me in real danger" described himself as "a cosmonaut of inner space."

Exploration of outer space was a major force behind change in 1959, spurring competition between Russia and the United States (A digression: check out this cool Tumblr image of the first dog in space. . . ) and adding new words to the popular vocabulary. Thermonuclear war became a threat (I remember "duck and cover" beneath the schoolroom desk!) a disquieting fact satirized by the envelope-pushing comedians of the day, Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl. The latter claimed mixed emotions regarding any approaching airplane, never knowing "whether it was going to drop a hydrogen bomb or spell out 'Pepsi-Cola' in skywriting." My Uncle Al, who lived downstairs from my grandparents, had one of Bruce's LP's on the Fantasy label and I still remember asking the obvious question, from a child's point of view (Where are they going?) when I overheard his famous routine about coming!

Kaplan's description of the American modern art scene and its politics was of particular interest to me. He writes about Solomon Guggenheim's focus on non-objective art, encouraged by Hilla Rebay. (I just discovered her wonderful work about a year ago.) And he writes at length about the the two ground-breaking artists, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, whose work I have only recently begun to appreciate fully. Great book!